IndyCar's next steps after penalty-marred Indy 500

IndyCar has begun work on a new car scanning process to try to tighten up its post-race inspection procedures after the penalties that marred the Indianapolis 500.

Two major technical compliance controversies hit the event.

The first came over the attenuators on Penske’s cars, which led to two of them being put to the tail of the Indy 500 grid and Penske releasing a number of its most senior management personnel, and prompted much wider questions over IndyCar technical policing when it emerged the illegal part had probably been on the 2024 Indy 500-winning car, too.

Then three cars - including those of Andretti’s runner-up Marcus Ericsson and fifth-placed Kyle Kirkwood - lost their Indy 500 results when technical irregularities were found in post-race inspections.

IndyCar president Doug Boles announced ahead of this weekend’s Detroit round that car builder Dallara and the Ganassi, Andretti, Foyt and McLaren teams had all collaborated with the series in initial work on “a new project that will ultimately help us implement partial scanning of our cars in the near future”, which would bring IndyCar closer to Formula 1 and NASCAR’s methods for insuring technical compliance.

“Each team provided their Indianapolis 500 cars for us to use this week for scanning verification,” Boles explained.

“This was extra work for their crews after a very busy weekend and I appreciate their support.

“We learned quite a bit in the exercise and are targeting at least two more events this year where we can validate the process and our learnings and continue to advance our technical inspection process in the future.”

Indy 500 penalties accepted

Boles’ announcement ahead of Detroit emphasised that “compliance with ‘parts as supplied’ rules is paramount to providing safe and fair competition”.

Andretti had initially indicated it would appeal the loss of Ericsson's and Kirkwood’s Indy 500 results. But Boles said both Andretti and fellow penalised team Prema - which lost Callum Ilott’s 12th place - had “transparent and open conversations with us regarding how mistakes were made” with their cars.

Both teams were determined to have made illegal aerodynamic modifications to their cars.

Andretti issued a statement soon after Boles’ to confirm it now accepted the penalties, adding that "while we are disappointed in the outcome, we will take the necessary steps to ensure full compliance moving forward”.

How penalised drivers reacted

Just after learning that they had lost their Indy 500 results, Ericsson, Kirkwood and Ilott all had to appear at the Indy 500’s post-event banquet on Monday.

Ilott was certainly the most light-hearted of the group, saying he received the news while he was at brunch - which was consequently 'ruined' - although that stance may have been in part down to his Prema team quickly accepting IndyCar’s penalty.

His team was deemed to have exceeded the “minimum endplate height and location specification" on his car, plus along with Andretti both teams were hit with a violation of IndyCar’s “improper conduct” rule - which covers “unsportsmanlike conduct, unsafe conduct, or conduct detrimental to racing”.

As part of a team statement, Prema said it “looks forward to implementing the needed procedures to ensure improved control and avoid these kinds of issues in the future”.

Both teams were pinged with $100,000 penalties, which prompted Ilott to apologise for almost being late to the banquet because “I was looking for Robert [team-mate, Shwartzman’s] pole money so I could pay the fine!”.

Andretti was much more measured and had initially indicated it would appeal the penalties.

Kirkwood - whose penalty also dropped him from third to fifth in the drivers’ championship - strongly defended the Andretti team’s character.

“This team is built on sportsmanship, built on integrity, and we’ll do everything right in the future,” he said.

Ericsson, who lost a second place and fell from 11th to 20th in the standings, was already emotionally strained from a race where he felt he could have won and knew he would “lose sleep” thinking about how winner Alex Palou passed him.

Boles praised all three drivers as they were given the option not to attend the banquet given the bad news they had received, but all three chose to attend and gave a great account of themselves.

The significance of the penalties

It’s incredibly unusual for IndyCar to change its results after a race has finished. It did so by disqualifying Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin from the St Petersburg opener last year when they were illegally able to use push-to-pass on restarts. But that was a breach of incredibly serious magnitude.

Going back to even as recently as 2022, Alexander Rossi’s Andretti car made up the minimum weight with the contents of a water bottle - which is not allowed - when he won on the Indianapolis road course. There was a hefty fine and points deduction but Rossi kept the win.

After last week’s scandal surrounding Team Penske using modified attenuators, two of its cars were put to the back of the grid because of the severity of its breach.

So it will be interesting to track if post-race position changes become a more normal feature in the penalty arsenal of IndyCar as it revamps its technical policing. It assesses every infringement on a case-by-case basis - but there is room in the regulations for it to hand out more or less severe penalties depending on the nature and intent of the offences committed.