‘We're not here to watch them.' Was Indy 500 lessened by hybrid, rules? Drivers weigh in

Indianapolis Star

a day ago

DETROIT — In the wake of two consecutive years featuring last-lap passes for the win in the Indianapolis 500 – a race that has only had four such finishes in its century-plus history — Pato O'Ward, twice a runner-up, called this year's edition a 'boring, pretty crap race' from his position finishing fourth at the checkered flag.
Or was it sixth? The Arrow McLaren driver remained worried post-race that the two nearly (but not completely) lapped cars of Devlin DeFrancesco and Louis Foster might've confused casual fans while their presence largely prevented any high-action battles for the lead in the final 10 laps of Alex Palou's first Indy 500 win on Sunday.
Though opinions weren't uniform across the paddock, O'Ward was not alone in his frustration.
'That's just not a finish an Indy 500 race deserves. People want to be excited and see an exhilarating finish,' O'Ward said Monday evening ahead of the Indy 500 victory celebration. 'Last year, that was a race. That was a friggin' race. I know I didn't end up winning, but I think it's safe to say that was a race.
'2023? That was a race. 2022? Those are the fights I believe everyone really looks forward to having, and that last bit was ruined by that.'
The culprits that have drawn the ire of O'Ward, his Arrow McLaren teammate Christian Lundgaard, Team Penske's Will Power and others? The presence of two cars at the back of the lead lap down the closing stretch that effectively made Palou, on-track runner-up Marcus Ericsson and Co. feel as if they were battling in a pack — something that's near impossible to do at the moment with the additional 100-plus pounds of IndyCar's hybrid system that debuted in the 500 this month.
The way the 500 ended has been a sticking point for Power for years, because, unlike in Formula 1 — where a car that is about to be overtaken by the race leader, putting them one lap down — IndyCar rules do not require slower cars to move over until they're about to go two laps down.
In layman's terms, Foster and DeFrancesco had no obligation to swerve aside once Palou or Ericsson reached their rear wings in the closing laps because, according to IndyCar's rule book, cars on the lead lap are allowed to fight to stay there, and not until a car has been lapped by all the lead-lap cars it need to cede track.
The idea behind IndyCar's long-held rules is that a car that hasn't yet been lapped stands to be put right back into a prime position to pick up spots, should a caution come out and require a restart with the field bunched back up.
To Power, that's not enough of an excuse over the final 10 laps or so to ruin what could have been an edge-of-your-seat finish between Palou, the most dominant driver of the last couple years, Ericsson, the 2022 Indy 500 winner and 2023 500 runner-up.
'Fans want to see first- and second-place doing what the last cars on the lead lap were doing, going back and forth, and that's what you would've gotten with (more than) 8 million people watching at the end (on Fox). It's a pity, it's a pity,' Power said. 'We're not here to watch (DeFrancesco and Foster).
'Can you imagine? (Palou and Ericsson) would've been going back and forth, but it was smart for (Alex) to just sit there and stay in the draft, and to be honest, you could pay someone to do that for you. At the end of the race, you could just have one of your team cars who's out of it back up and go back and forth, and there's nothing in the rules that says you can't do that. You absolutely can do that and win that way.'
DeFrancesco, who finished 14th on track before advancing up to 11th due to post-race tech inspection penalties, acknowledged that those hopes for a late-race caution were precisely why he and his Rahal Letterman Lanigan teammate traded spots back and forth during Sunday's closing laps, while staying just far enough out of reach of Palou to maintain their lead-lap position.
'I get (other drivers' frustration), but at the time, I was doing as instructed, and that's the way it works out sometimes,' DeFrancesco said. 'It's a tough one. I understand from their point of view, but it's not my place to comment or decide. We have the IndyCar stewards in place to make that decision, and we followed the rules.'
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Scott Dixon, Palou's Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, backed DeFrancesco's sentiments.
'They're on their own race, too,' he said. 'I think people who are going to complain are the people that lost. It's just how the cycle of the race worked out, and good for Alex.'
Added Team Penske's Scott McLaughlin: 'It's the luck of the draw in IndyCar racing. At the end of the day, that's just how it works. There were no yellows, and those guys were trying to stay in the game on the lead lap, and if there's a yellow, those guys are back in the race.'
Somewhat surprisingly, Sunday's first-time 500 winner has mixed feelings about the topic.
'In my opinion, (showing them a blue flag) is what I would've liked, yes. You always want no traffic cars when you're going for the end of the race, but they've always left those cars there because they're on the lead lap,' Palou told IndyStar on Monday afternoon. 'But then at every track when there's 30% of the race to go, that's it, they shouldn't be up there, but the rules are like that, and Helio (Castroneves) used them the same way I did.'
As Palou made a point to note Sunday evening, the three-time IndyCar champ was forced to settle for runner-up in his first Indy 500 with Chip Ganassi Racing in 2021 because Castroneves, who was running second behind Palou with just under two laps to go, looked up the track and noticed the pair was quickly approaching (nearly) lapped traffic. So in a race where in clean air the car second in line could pass at ease, Castroneves took what to Palou seemed as if it was a bit premature pass back for the lead.
But soon after, the pair essentially joined the train of cars ahead, and in the turbulent air, Palou no longer had an easy pass to make on Castroneves, and he'd remain a few too many car lengths back for the final five miles of the race headed toward the checkered flag.
'(Sunday) wasn't boring for me. I was very tense,' said Palou in reference to O'Ward's 'boring' comment about the race that was from his view. 'I mean, would it be better without traffic? Maybe, maybe not.
'It was the situation we were in, and I think he'd probably change his words if he was the guy winning.'
The idea that the third or fourth car in line would have difficulty passing a car directly ahead, even if the one trailing was the eventual Indy 500 winner, and the one ahead was a mid-pack car at best, has been a feature of the 500 and IndyCar for a couple years now, as a car that debuted in 2012 has continued to take on more and more weight than it was ever intended to run with.
But the addition of the 100-plus pounds related to IndyCar's move to hybrid technology has only exacerbated the issue over the last 11 months, leading to several races with abnormally low numbers of on-track passes, historically long caution-free droughts and passes for the lead on road and street courses that are few and far between. Technology that IndyCar and manufacturer leaders pledged would improve the racing product has, at least in reference to the competitive side of the sport, hampered what cars can do.
Though we still saw several passes for the lead throughout Sunday's race from cars jumping one spot up from second-place — as well as a notable highlight-reel move from Conor Daly that saw the Juncos Hollinger Racing driver leap to the lead from third — the Indy car's lack of nimbleness has only further hampered what was already a car, many drivers believe, past the point of no return.
'I think you'd head the same from everybody: (the hybrid) is kinda useless,' Lundgaard said. 'I don't think any one of us really enjoy it. It doesn't give us any benefit, and I think it's just made the racing worse.
'It just causes more problems than it does good.'
IndyCar's "car problem," Lundgaard said, has only been worsened by promises of a new car that have been kicked down the road for more than half a decade, now with promises of a new one either in 2027 or 2028. And so the fact a new one wasn't yet ready when IndyCar reached do-or-die mode with its need to shift to hybrid technology to appease its manufacturers, the change only made worse the Frankenstein monster of a car.
'I think the Blackhawk helicopters flying over us (on the pace laps) was the highlight of the day,' Lundgaard said of his 500 that ended with a ninth-place finish on-track and a seventh-place finish in the final results. 'Get (the hybrid) out of the car and give us a new car as quick as possible. We've known for a long time that a new car was coming, but it keeps getting moved, and that's a problem.