Results are not official; Hunter-Reay currently recognized as winner
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The IZOD IndyCar Series’ first race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in 13 seasons will certainly be remembered. Whether they will be remembered for the right reasons is currently up for debate.
And, as of now, so are the results of the inaugural MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225, which ended in controversy as an ill-fated restart on a racing surface slick with moisture caused widespread anger at IndyCar Race Control and chief steward Brian Barnhart. Trackside Online has reported that the results are currently tentative as protests have been received by the series.
After a yellow for light rain came out with 20 laps to go, Barnhart made the call to restart the race with eight laps to go despite wet track conditions. Danica Patrick promptly spun coming out of Turn 4, which caused Will Power and Takuma Sato to hit the brakes and spin into the inside wall. A furious Power climbed out of his machine, ran across pit road and eventually raised two middle fingers toward Race Control personnel in the control tower.
That’s likely to be the iconic image of Sunday’s race, which currently has Ryan Hunter-Reay as the winner with INDYCAR deciding to revert the finishing order to before the ill-fated restart — even though second-place finisher Oriol Servia contended that he was the true victor as he managed to pass Hunter-Reay during the very brief green that ensued before the yellow quickly came out again.
Barnhart later stated that none of the pit techs and track observers had objected to re-starting the race and that drivers’ complaints about the race track never got to Race Control. However, the INDYCAR president of competition admitted fault.
“When you’re responsible for the safety of those 26 drivers out there, every time you go and give them a track condition, they’re counting on you to make the right decision,” said Barnhart. “Obviously towards the end of that race, with the attempted restart, we made the wrong one. And that’s one of those things that just makes you feel sick to your stomach, when you do it, because you know after the fact, of course, that you chose poorly.”
“[The drivers] are talking back to their team managers or their strategist back in the pits and they would have to relay that to the pit tech and pit tech would have to relay it up to Race Control. That’s the process that never got to us. We never had a single pit tech call and say the driver of car X doesn’t think we should go.”
After his two-finger salute to Barnhart and Co., Power told reporters and a national TV audience that he was “begging” with Barnhart not to re-start the race. He later apologized for his obscene gesture, which will likely turn him into a god amongst those in the IndyCar fan base that believe that Barnhart is unfit for his duties as race steward — a group that likely grew in number after the ending of the race today.
“They cannot have this guy [Brian Barnhart] running the show,” Power said on television. “He makes such bad calls all the time.”
As of now, with the current finishing order, Power claimed fifth place to move within 47 points of Dario Franchitti in the IndyCar championship. Franchitti dominated the event until he and Sato came together in a bizarre incident on a restart at Lap 118. The Scotsman appeared to drift from the outside lane into Sato, who then turned him into the inside wall. The turn of events also claimed J.R. Hildebrand, who slowed down as the Franchitti-Sato crack-up unfolded only to have E.J. Viso tag him from behind to end his day.
Franchitti, who is currently credited with a 20th place finish, blamed Sato for the incident, saying that the former F1 driver was too close to him on the restart. For his part, Sato took the blame, citing debris in his eyes as a cause of the crash.
After that incident, Hunter-Reay was at the point for the rest of the race save for the final pit stops of the day, which occurred under green with around 70 laps to go. The American had none of Servia’s beliefs that he had won.
“The rule in IndyCar — just so you know — on starts and restarts is that the leader has to reach the start/finish line first,” he said. “That’s a rule. There’s another rule. The guy behind the leader can’t come out of line until the start/finish line. Both of those things happened…All I know is that we won and I’m happy about it.”
Servia, naturally, was quite upset about the reverted order, saying it never would’ve come down if it hadn’t been for the crash.
“They went green and I was leading when the yellow came,” the Spaniard said. “They even called it in Race Control: ‘Car 2 is the leader.’ Ryan was second. He had a bad restart…I don’t know if his tires were too cold, if he hadn’t warmed them up, I don’t know. They threw the green, I was ahead and the yellow came, so I’ve never seen before how they can reverse an order like that.”
Third-place finisher Scott Dixon, who also hated the reverted order and went as far as to wonder why the series even had a rulebook at all, came down on Servia’s side.
“We’re not racing dirt cars, we’re not racing USAC — we don’t go back to a previous restart and we don’t not count pace laps,” said Dixon. “When has that ever happened in IndyCar racing? Never.
“…Oriol won, Ryan finished second. Ryan didn’t go. We went past the restart cone. You snooze, you lose. That’s the same thing that happened to [Mike] Conway at Edmonton. If you don’t go, it’s free game and he didn’t go.”
