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Pato O’Ward and his Arrow McLaren SP team have criticised the call made by IndyCar not to penalise drivers improving Long Beach qualifying times under a yellow flag, which cost O’Ward a chance to fight for pole.
It’s a crucial weekend for O’Ward and Arrow McLaren SP as they need to finish first or second to win the IndyCar championship for the first time, while points leader Alex Palou merely needs to finish 11th to clinch the honours. The third challenger Josef Newgarden took pole but is all but out of contention.
When the yellows came out O’Ward was sixth and set to go through to the final session, a six-car shootout for pole, while Palou was eighth and set to miss out as he backed off as the first car to reach the stopped Will Power and a yellow flag.
But other cars continued to improve their times, pushing O’Ward out of the Fast Six.
Ed Jones was the only driver to be penalised even though other drivers improved late on, and because of the lack of penalties, O’Ward ended up eighth and Palou 10th.
After a review from @IndyCar, neither Alex Palou or Patricio O'Ward will make the Fast 6.
Hear from the championship contenders. pic.twitter.com/9FA86hxWB2
— IndyCar on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) September 25, 2021
One of the cars to improve was O’Ward’s team-mate Felix Rosenqvist, so they had access to his data.
In the post-session press conference when asked by The Race if he’d been told why the other drivers weren’t penalised, O’Ward said he was “still waiting on the explanation, just like you and everybody else, but doubt I’ll get an explanation”.
Recounting what happened to The Race, he added: “I’m really happy for Felix that he went into the Fast Six, but we are in the same team and we gave literal data that shows at least two of the cars that didn’t get penalised kept going quickly in a yellow flag.
“So I don’t know, maybe rules don’t apply at the last race of the season when everything’s at stake.
“It just sucks.
“Sucks to be stuck there, we should have transferred, we had the car to fight, I don’t know for pole but we definitely had a car to be in the Fast Six and start within the first two rows.”
IndyCar analysed the sector times through the area with a local yellow and decided that each car apart from Jones had satisfied its rule to slow by 15% through that sector.
In IndyCar, a driver can still improve on a lap where yellows occur, as long as they slow speed by 15% in that section as per rule 7.1.3.2.
Both O’Ward and Arrow McLaren SP team president Taylor Kiel referenced Rosenqvist, as he was one of the late improvers and the team could see exactly what he had done.
“We’ve actually got some data on our own team that says that…I’m surprised Felix is through frankly, it’s good for him but two cars we know for a fact went through the local yellow and [improved],” Kiel said.
“But, the results are official, we’ve got to make the best of what we’ve got.
“It’s unfortunate when the stakes are so high at the moment.”
Rosenqvist admitted that the situation was awkward, but was adamant he had slowed sufficiently.
“Man, I don’t know how they judged that because I’m happy I got through and we were fast enough to get through,” he said.
“But man, the car was standing there, and they kept the yellow for two or three laps and it’s qualifying. You have to push.
“But I wasn’t pushing. I was slowing down like three-tenths in that section, which I thought was safe.
“We just have to be more clear on how the rule works.”
Dixon vs Castroneves too
Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, Palou’s team-mate, was another driver left frustrated in qualifying as he felt he was baulked by Helio Castroneves and should’ve been on pole not second to Newgarden.
“The car in qualifying was really good,” said Dixon. “Bit bummed, Helio totally screwed us on the last lap there, I think we definitely had enough speed to be right there for the pole.
“But obviously we didn’t improve enough just because we caught him throughout that lap.”
Castroneves, scoring his best qualifying position since Gateway in 2017, his last full season in the series, was asked by NBC TV what he thought of Dixon’s claim he had been held up, even though Dixon jumped ahead of him on the last runs.
“I guess he’s so used to starting up front that when he sees somebody like miles away he might say like ‘oh my God, it’s right in front of me!’,” he said.
“There was no way.
“I had hot tyres, full power, that’s why I did my lap.
“I think he’s misjudged the perception of what it was. I was in total control, there was no way I was holding up in front of anybody.”
Dixon, who faces the unusual prospect of not fighting for the title this weekend, added an explanation of a close call that could have forced him to avoid qualifying altogether after he crashed at Turn 6 in the final practice earlier in the day.
“Kudos to the team for getting the car fixed because it had actually done a fair bit of damage, because the brakes caught on fire and it burnt a lot of the wiring and shrouds and all that kind of stuff,” he said.
“Big thank you to them. Great starting position in P2 and we can definitely fight for the win.
“Obviously not fighting for the championship which is a little strange but we’ll be doing anything we can to try and help that trophy stay at home [with Ganassi via Palou].”
