IndyCar, IndyCar Officiating announce changes following Rossi’s Indy road course incident

The updated operating practice and process will not take into account pit windows or running order before deploying a full course caution

IndyCar and IndyCar Officiating have announced alterations to an operating practice and process update, which comes in the wake of the on-track incident involving ECR’s #20 Chevrolet of Alexander Rossi in Saturday's race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

On Lap 21 of 85, Rossi’s car suffered a mechanical issue, which he later insinuated was due to the hybrid, and was stopped on the right side of the front straightaway; the press release stated “off the racing line” at an area of the track cars receive a tow and potentially go three-and four-wide.

It was deemed that course marshals followed standard flagging protocol and deployed a standing yellow condition at Marshal Panel 14, with a corresponding waving yellow condition at Marshal Panel S/F (start-finish) to alert competitors to the stationary car. The escalation to a full course yellow (FCY) was made on Lap 22 as the driver began to exit the race car.

Following race control practice, the assessment of whether and when to escalate a local yellow to a FCY included the weighing of the following standard factors: driver egress, vehicle position, recovery vehicle access, safety team locations, laps remaining and the timing of approaching traffic to the incident. Additional factors on timing of a FCY also included pit windows and the running order of cars on track.

Upon further review and effective immediately, IndyCar Officiating will no longer take into consideration pit windows and the running order of cars on track before deploying a FCY. Local yellow procedures remain unchanged, with the initiation of a FCY based primarily on driver status, vehicle position and condition, the location and readiness of safety personnel, recovery access, and the speed differential between affected cars and approaching traffic.

“The Lap 21 incident on Saturday made clear that there needs to be a cleaner standard for how race control moves from a local to a full course yellow,” IndyCar Officiating’s Independent Officiating Board chair Raj Nair said.

“IndyCar Officiating, with IndyCar’s full support, has made this change of approach to ensure that the only inputs to the full course yellow escalation are safety ones. Streamlining the assessment will also save time as competitive considerations are no longer a factor.”

IndyCar President Doug Boles, who also serves as president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, added, “The most important job in race control is to ensure the safety of our drivers, crews, safety workers and fans. Saturday highlighted that we must not waver from that central mission and aligning everyone on that philosophy was critical to discuss over the last 48 hours.

"The Independent Officiating Board, the new managing director of officiating, race director and IndyCar are all in agreement and the metrics used to determine when to initiate a full course yellow will now ensure that when there is any risk to driver safety that race control will initiate a full course yellow.”