2014 IndyCar Grand Prix of Houston (Double Header)
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Looks like I missed a lot of action this weekend. I’m moving to Houston in a few months; I’ll have to make it to this race next year.
On Wednesday, four days after race one in Houston, IndyCar revealed that the Dale Coyne car of winner Huertas had failed technical checks on two counts. In line with their recent practice for such infractions, the team were fined. Here’s the press release:
IndyCar announced today post-event infractions from the Shell and Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston Race 1, which was held June 28 at Houston’s NRG Park.
IndyCar officials have fined Dale Coyne Racing for a pair of technical violations on its No. 18 Verizon IndyCar Series entry driven by Carlos Huertas. The entrant was found to have violated Rule 14.6.4.18 (Rear Wing Height) and Rule 14.7.2 (Fuel Cell Capacity) of the Verizon IndyCar Series rulebook. The team was fined a total of $10,000 – $5,000 for each infraction. IndyCar officials determined that the infractions did not impact the finishing order of the race or final position of the offending team.
The members may contest the imposition of the penalty pursuant to the procedures and timelines detailed in the review and appeal procedures of the Verizon IndyCar Series rulebook.
As I’ve said before, I don’t agree with IndyCar’s approach here. No one likes to strip a driver of a hard-won result – least of all a rookie of his first-ever win – but if a car fails a technical check like this I don’t think it’s acceptable to let the result stand.
A similar situation happened the last time Coyne won a race, with Wilson at Texas in 2012. Furthermore, although IndyCar notified the media of Coyne’s fine via email, as far as I can tell they haven’t made any mention of it on their official site or on their Twitter account, which is rather telling.
Especially as the infringements are with “fuel tank capacity” that might really have been critical in allowing them to win. Not a good penalty.
On a different not, why does it take almost a week? Here we were complaining why it took the stewards until hours after the race to decide Ricciardo was disqualified for Australia, and this is 4 days after the weekend, 5 days since the race was won.
As I understand it, the maximum capacity allowed is 18.5 gallons. The car passed pre-race inspection at 18.45 gallons. After the race it was measured at 18.6 (one suggestion was that internal components had expanded due to heat). I’ll agree that whether the extra made any difference or not, it should be a DSQ.
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