Palou on being delayed by traffic: 'It's a shame, but that's the rules'
Today at 08:31 PM
Race winner Alex Palou used a situation many fans have experienced while commuting to describe the experience of being stuck behind Juncos Hollinger Racing's Sting Ray Robb late in the race and seeing his five-second lead over Josef Newgarden get carved to less than one second while being backed up by Robb.
"Similar to when you’re on the highway and there’s somebody that is driving, like, 40 miles an hour in the left (lane) and wouldn’t move, and then you pass him and he’s like trying to go faster than before and he passes you again," the Chip Ganassi Racing driver said. "It’s that kind of frustration, especially when he’s able to use (push-to-pass boost, known as “OT” for “overtake”), and you as the leader, you don’t want to burn 50 seconds of OT to pass , but he can do that to try and stay in front of you, especially if he’s from another engine manufacturer.
"It’s a shame, but honestly, I know that’s the rules, and there’s been some races where that was beneficial to me, like to be second and to have the first one trapped in traffic. This time I was the one that started losing my gap to Newgarden and it went from five seconds down to 0.9, to we lost a bunch of track time, but at least we didn’t lose any track position."
Although the Chevy-powered Robb held up the Honda-powered Palou, which advantaged the Chevy-powered Newgarden, Robb did nothing that was illegal in IndyCar's rule book, nor was it the first time — or the last — where a driver about to be lapped by the leader fights extraordinarily hard to prevent the pass. And, possibly, to assist a stablemate from Chevy or Honda.
It's even more common to see such heavy defending from a smaller team like Juncos Hollinger, which isn't regularly found in the spotlight on the broadcast; for some, it might be one of the only times during the season where, despite running towards the back of the field, their sponsors are seen on television for multiple laps.
Had Robb been a lap down at the time, he would have received waving blue flags — the move-over signal — from the flaggers. Looking at the big picture, Palou said he would not want to see a rule change to use the blue flag on those who are at risk of being lapped, but did question whether they use of push-to-pass might be disabled in those situation.
"No, I wouldn’t like the blue flag," he said. "Yes, today I would have said, ‘Yes, blue flag, please, get this car out of the way.’ But there’s many times where I’m last, as well, and I don’t want to get lapped. I like the blue flag rule. Maybe I would modify the OT rule because that would be, I would say, more fair, because that way you don’t allow the car in front of you to burn, as I said, 50 seconds off OT like I think Sting Ray went from 70 seconds of OT down to zero in like 10 laps (Robb had eight seconds left).
"Yeah, as the leader, you cannot burn all that OT because you might need it in case there’s restarts or Newgarden attacking you. Yeah, I would modify some stuff, but I like the fact that you don’t have to give up your position."
