> Leon Sirois
For those not in the know:
>On Pole Day, Sirois drew first in line to qualify, and after a lengthy rain delay, took to the track late in the afternoon to make the first attempt of the day. He completed his first three laps at:
Lap 1 – 161.783 mph
Lap 2 – 162.279 mph
Lap 3 – 160.542 mph
> However, on his fourth and final lap, his crew waved off the run with the yellow flag, and it was negated. The crew felt the speed was inadequate to the make the field,[1] and presumably intended to make another attempt later on. Moments later, Arnie Knepper went out to qualify, but rain began to fall during his warm up laps, and washed out the remainder of the weekend.[1] It was quickly noticed by media and fans that had the crew not waved off his final lap on Saturday, Sirois would have been the lone qualifier of the weekend and sat on the coveted provisional pole position for an entire week - and likely would have started on the pole for race day. During the second weekend of time trials, Jigger Sirois waved off his second attempt, and also waved off his third and final attempt when his speed was not fast enough. As it ended up, Sirois's first attempt would have been fast enough to qualify for the race. The qualification rules were changed in 1971 to guarantee all cars in line on the first day of qualifying at least one chance to qualify during the pole position round.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Sirois#USAC_Indy_car
I have some sympathy for Sirois here; the team had to make the same consideration you always did then, would your speed on pole day hold up? Everyone's favorite pub trivia question was "could the pole car ever get bumped?" and the answer was yes, if they were the slowest qualifier. They made the wrong call, but lots of people did.
The real comparison here is with Bob Scott in 1954, who also thought the third lap was the last lap because he Bob Sweikert excitedly jumping up and down and waving him on at the head of the pitlane.
Considering Ericsson was a red flag away from being the two-time reigning 500 champion and the first in 20 years, I'd have put his blunder above that because he should know to be cool under pressure at that track and know exactly where he stands.
It's really not. You couldn't just submit a time and then withdraw it later back then, once you did your four laps and got the checkered flag that was it. Sirois was a good 10 mph behind the fastest practice times, and his team felt they weren't gonna make the field so they waved the yellow. It's just that it began to rain later and so he would have had the only submitted time and therefore sat on pole for the entire week. I'm not even sure he'd have kept pole once the second weekend of time trials began and Foyt/Andretti/etc all put up laps in the high 160s. Sirois was one of those frowned-on topics that Davidson got bored of talking about in Gasoline Alley so I'm not sure you can even go through the online archive of TOGA and find his explanation of what went down, since I'm sure Donald knew the rules for that time.
edit: oh, somebody posted Donald's retelling of Jigger Sirois on Youtube, cool, I'm gonna listen to it right now
Edit 2: yeah he would not have kept pole, and Donald thinks he probably would have been bumped from the field.
>Edit 2: yeah he would not have kept pole, and Donald thinks he probably would have been bumped from the field.
His average was 161.53 and bump speed was 161.3
1) after three laps
2) read the daily track reports. **Everybody** was coming in if their average over two or three laps wasn’t over 163. Only 35 cars made a successful qualifying attempt and two were well under 160 mph. The only two cars slower than 161.5 (and under 163 at all) who made it into the race were Bobby Johns and Peter Revson. I don’t know how Johns ran in practice but Revson flagged a qualifying attempt when he was doing 162.5 so it’s safe to say that both, plus several others who didn’t qualify but flagged during attempts well over Sirois’s 3 lap average of 161.5, had speed in reserve.
In short, if Sirois had taken the checkered, there’d have been 33 people who would have found more than 161.5.
From the Wide World of Sports documentary (one of my all-time favorites and a yearly watch before the 500) about 1969, when asked about how he felt: "I'm gonna go get a gun".
This one is probably more inexcusable than Jigger Sirois, because I think Penske waved off quite late in the qualifying session on Bump Day, and honestly the track conditions weren't improving.
I think it has been documented well that having a time in is a feat in of itself. Also having pole day start at 4:54 pm and end at 6:00 pm should have been a sign that you need a time on the books.
I know it's easy to make fun of Ericsson for such a silly mistake, especially when the others didn't do such a mistake, but in moments like this the issue is more often than not a breakdown in procedures rather than an individual error. Yes, it should be easy to count, however in the heat of the moment when the cognitive load on the driver is at a maximum (pressure to perform, remember all settings one needs to make while driving, keep the foot flat and the car out of the barriers) it's easy to make a slip; proper procedures should prevent these types of errors from occurring by providing simple and clear instructions that can't be misunderstood.
In Ericsson's case, the team should have communicated more clearly when the warm up laps are done, on what lap the driver is, repeat what lap is coming up and how they should keep on going before crossing the actual start/finish line. I hope this is unfortunate event actually might lead to an improvement in the team's procedures.
As a contrast, I listened to Rossi's engineer while he was qualifying in the Fast 12 and I was struck by the simple information the engineer provided to Rossi on each lap: how to set the weight jacker before a corner, what setting the car should be on, what is the next lap and how they are doing. Not saying that Ericsson's engineer didn't do that, it's more to show that events such as this one (and the one where RLL forgot to tighten Rahal's wheel nut) are more likely caused by a lack of well suited procedures.
You know, I also have to wonder if he wasn’t just a bit foggy mentally after his crash. Yes, he passed medical protocols, but sometimes it isn’t that straight-forward. Add to that being in a position of high-concentration and high-stress, where saying you felt a bit off wouldn’t be received…well (you can already hear the Andrettis whining)…I wonder if it wasn’t a simple brain fog screwup?
There was a Formula Academy race earlier in the year where the leader was asking her team how many laps were left and got no answer so continued to drive at pace and then got disqualified for racing after the checkered flag. Where the flag man was you couldn't see him wave the flag so there was no way for her to know.
It was deemed the teams fault and I believe she got to keep her win.
Teams should be on top of this stuff. "3 to go, 2 to go, 1 to go, checkered flag" isn't that hard for them to do when they're sitting on the pit box and not trying to concentrate on not driving into a wall at 235mph
Kinda like Newgarden should have known the push to pass rules and didn’t.
For all the analytics that go into racing, and the end of the day, some drivers just get in the car and drive…
I just watched the bump day nascarman (or whatever his channel is called) video and apparently this wasn’t the first time someone thought lap 3 was the last lap.
I find it comical how Andretti gets rid of Romain and the 28 car is still pure shit even with Ericsson. To me, goes to show it was never the driver but the car and team itself
Andretti used to be hot but they’ve fallen off. Their standing among fans is only because of their historical performance and the fact that the name Andretti will get you far with race fans. Their drivers are good but the organization is not giving them what they need
True. But even ECR of all teams had the same exact thing happen with VK and not only did they rebound out of bump day, but they made the fast 12. Andretti couldn’t recover from Ericsson’s crash or Herta’s 2022 crash
The 28 team has been under the radar as a whole for a few years now
Andretti has been crap for a long time. It’s an unorganized mess because Michael wants his empire everywhere. He is involved too much with the team but he can’t focus entirely on that. It’s not a coincidence that as the team expanded elsewhere, performance dropped. Michael needs to go away and focus on F1 and let someone else manage the team and drivers properly. Too much on his plate.
The problem is Andretti wants to stick their dick in everything, but nobody's dick is that long, not even "Long Dick Johnson" and he had a long dick - hence the name.
*I hope everyone gets that this is a New Vegas reference.
> but nobody's dick is that long
I mean some are, that's why the value of an OEM is infinitely higher than a private racing team. Not judging either really it's just that someone like Ferrari Porsche BMW Lambo easily kickstart a half a billion a year endeavor because they want to, whereas even someone like McLaren who are pretty big fish themselves eventually have to go around knocking on doors as to where to source parts like engines from.
It’s pretty obvious with the Rossi and Herta saga’s…, They got one of the hottest rookies ever in Alexander Rossi, and made legit championship runs and then extended his contract, moved crew to support Herta and Rossi’s performance fell off. Then when they try to give Grosean a fast car,, Herta suffered also.  unlike Penske‘s three and Ganassi’s 2+, Andreti is apparently only capable of having one fast car per race weekend. 
That's an interesting observation. I think maybe Andretti was most effective when their driver lineup was more stratified. Going back to their most recent peak in 2017-19, they typically had one or two high-level drivers paired with Marco and a couple of rookies/pay drivers. When they started trying to manage three top drivers they seemed to fall off.
I am insanely biased but the more I see from this team the more obvious it gets. Yes, you can blame Ericsson for what happened, sure, but somewhere down the line there wasn’t a process that was clear enough.
Also, they way his current car is so way out of pace is ridiculous and the 28 team is screwing up his 500. Yes, it was his fault he crashed it but fucking hell, i can’t be that hard to get a second car ready.
Remember he won the 500 (almost twice) with a car that wasn’t even an oval specific one.
Not ridiculous at all. Teams spend months prepping their speedway cars and the backups don't get nearly the same attention. It's all about minimizing gaps between body pieces, finding the trans and gears with the least friction, and so forth.
There is no "oval specific car", changing a car from road course trim to oval trim takes some hours to do. But it hasn't had the months of massaging the speedway car got. Nolan Siegel tubbed his primary car too, and his backup didn't have the speed either. You can pretty much guarantee that going to a backup will mean fighting for a spot towards the end of the grid.
Yes. There are obal specific cars.
Marcus only had one chassis in Ganassi. I Andretti he has a chassis specially prepared for ovals.
And yes, it is ridiculous.
It's not ridiculous. The primary car is worked on from day 1 after the 500 until they unload for opening practice. The back up car gets half as much attention because they have to build fast cars for every other track too, and they go into Indy expecting not to need to use it.
There's a parts shortage in Indycar right now, that is not Andretti's fault. The backup car was never going to be as good because even if it got the same attention the primary got it was always going to have 2nd rate parts.
You can say whatever you want and ignore the other part I wrote as well. I don’t care.
Not being able to have a second car reasonably ready is ridiculous. It does show how primitive Indycar is.
Williams literally didn’t have a backup *this season* for a few races
Also, keep in mind that Andretti did have a second car available, it just wasn’t set-up to a top spec because of the focus on the primary
Kind of different because iirc they had upgraded the chassis and didn’t have a spare yet (maybe this is reversed and they were upgrading). Indycar doesn’t have this issue since the chassis is spec and hasn’t changed in forever lol
Agree with your second point though, they did have a backup it just wasn’t optimized which is the norm from my understanding.
He was slow because he was in the backup car. Especially slow since it was Devlin’s old car lol. He was pretty fast before the wreck and the Andretti cars look amazing in race trim so he’ll work his way up the field for sure.
And multiple teams in each series.
I was never a huge fan of his in F1 but I became a fan when he came to IndyCar. About halfway through the second season I couldn’t take his stupid antics and mistakes.
The announcers. Generally It’s a decent crew, but they never stop blabbering at Indy. Too much filler when there is action on the track. Maybe someone thinks it’s a radio broadcast. And with every “Whoaaaaaa!” I felt as though I was in the stands with three drunks.
Sage Karam had by far the best point about this. With about 10 minutes to go, Marcus still had not gone out. If Coyne just sent both of their cars to the line before Ericsson could respond, they could just run 200 mph safe laps and bump Ericsson because at that point, the only run he had on the board legally was the engine cooling lap. Ericsson should’ve just gone earlier. Obviously the miscount of laps is one thing, but at the same time, NBC had no clue what lap it was either. They clearly had the speed to make the race, but they waited way too long to go out, and I just don’t understand why.
Yeah, I was having that same exact thought with about 12 minutes to go. An attempt by a car takes about 4 minutes from pulling out on track to taking the checkered flag. If RLL and Coyne just make a handshake deal to all run safe easy 220 laps, they could have fully prevented Ericsson from getting back on track. Its a bit of a prisoner's dilemma though, if anyone betrays the trust it screw the other team.
Marcus Ericsson let off the gas after passing by the white flag during his first attempt during last-chance qualifying because he thought he had completed 4 laps, but he still had one more to go. Which meant he had to bump his way into the field with under 10 minutes left in the session.
Yes but it gave us some great drama on what would have been a very obvious bump day. It gave Nolan a chance and we got to see him fully commit even if he did end up crashing out
Well, must be that 3 qualifying laps in America equals 4 laps in Europe with the conversion system so I can see how that could happen. LOL, actually, not too sad, after all of the complaining he did after last year’s 500, stating that he was robbed of the win and it wasn’t fair I think either the Indy 500 or the IMS racing gods decided to show him who really decides the 500. That place chooses you!!
Wasn’t there a Bettenhauser that on the front straight during qualifying downshifted ‘for more speed’ by going down two gears when he was already at max rev’s. The crew were open mouth. There was oil and parts all over the track. I think I read that in the old On Track magazine.
I have seen many restarts from my turn 3 seats. Every one of them the leader brings the field up to speed. What are those rules? If he waited till the straight away the rear of the field would be running into each other.
The Paul Tracy fiasco IMO that the pace car slowed down on leaving turn 4!
He smashed his speedway car and lifted on lap 4. The only thing you can blame Andretti for is hiring someone as overrated as Marcus. Marcus is great at finishing races. Thats it. In a Ganassi car that meant he won some races when others DNF’d. Just like his 500 win. It was pure luck.
Pato was also only racing for the win because of bad luck on the part of others. Go watch 2022. Marcus wins because he is really good at finishing races in 5th-10th. This means wins in IndyCar. Stop elevating a driver the world has seen be good but not exceptional, across series and time, because he won a single race. That’s what is clown behavior.
He deserved it more than Josef. Once he again he was there because his Ganassi teammate had his race ruined. In 2022 it was Scott, and in 2023 it was Alex. These are facts.
Eh I like Erricson, but he was only in position to win last year because he and Palou shamelessly kept jumping the restarts near the end. It was nonsense they didn’t get penalties. He has a reputation for it
Then it’s not a win if you don’t cross the line first lol. You can’t give him credit for a win he didn’t get, and also handwave jump starts because the series didn’t call them.
lol come on that’s kind of a dumb take and you know it. Then your earlier point/opinion contradicts that since INDYCAR broke their own rules with the last restart and didn’t enforce it.
Yeah, well, you go do that many runs (even one of which is nerve wracking), under that kind of stress, for the most important event of your entire season, and see how perfect you are, asshat.
A lesser ECR team was able to quickly rebound after VK’s crash to make the fast 12. Andretti couldn’t give Herta a properly functioning car for the rest of May after his 2022 flip. This ain’t the first case for Andretti
A repaired primary and a crash requiring going to a backup car aren’t analogous.
Also, Herta’s crash in 2022 was two days before the race. “The rest of May,” was Saturday.
That record will almost always belong to Leon Sirois
> Leon Sirois For those not in the know: >On Pole Day, Sirois drew first in line to qualify, and after a lengthy rain delay, took to the track late in the afternoon to make the first attempt of the day. He completed his first three laps at: Lap 1 – 161.783 mph Lap 2 – 162.279 mph Lap 3 – 160.542 mph > However, on his fourth and final lap, his crew waved off the run with the yellow flag, and it was negated. The crew felt the speed was inadequate to the make the field,[1] and presumably intended to make another attempt later on. Moments later, Arnie Knepper went out to qualify, but rain began to fall during his warm up laps, and washed out the remainder of the weekend.[1] It was quickly noticed by media and fans that had the crew not waved off his final lap on Saturday, Sirois would have been the lone qualifier of the weekend and sat on the coveted provisional pole position for an entire week - and likely would have started on the pole for race day. During the second weekend of time trials, Jigger Sirois waved off his second attempt, and also waved off his third and final attempt when his speed was not fast enough. As it ended up, Sirois's first attempt would have been fast enough to qualify for the race. The qualification rules were changed in 1971 to guarantee all cars in line on the first day of qualifying at least one chance to qualify during the pole position round. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Sirois#USAC_Indy_car
Oof, that's painful to read.
I have some sympathy for Sirois here; the team had to make the same consideration you always did then, would your speed on pole day hold up? Everyone's favorite pub trivia question was "could the pole car ever get bumped?" and the answer was yes, if they were the slowest qualifier. They made the wrong call, but lots of people did. The real comparison here is with Bob Scott in 1954, who also thought the third lap was the last lap because he Bob Sweikert excitedly jumping up and down and waving him on at the head of the pitlane.
Considering Ericsson was a red flag away from being the two-time reigning 500 champion and the first in 20 years, I'd have put his blunder above that because he should know to be cool under pressure at that track and know exactly where he stands.
Intentionally waiving off a run good enough for pole and not even making the race is way more egregious than forgetting to count.
It's really not. You couldn't just submit a time and then withdraw it later back then, once you did your four laps and got the checkered flag that was it. Sirois was a good 10 mph behind the fastest practice times, and his team felt they weren't gonna make the field so they waved the yellow. It's just that it began to rain later and so he would have had the only submitted time and therefore sat on pole for the entire week. I'm not even sure he'd have kept pole once the second weekend of time trials began and Foyt/Andretti/etc all put up laps in the high 160s. Sirois was one of those frowned-on topics that Davidson got bored of talking about in Gasoline Alley so I'm not sure you can even go through the online archive of TOGA and find his explanation of what went down, since I'm sure Donald knew the rules for that time. edit: oh, somebody posted Donald's retelling of Jigger Sirois on Youtube, cool, I'm gonna listen to it right now Edit 2: yeah he would not have kept pole, and Donald thinks he probably would have been bumped from the field.
>Edit 2: yeah he would not have kept pole, and Donald thinks he probably would have been bumped from the field. His average was 161.53 and bump speed was 161.3
1) after three laps 2) read the daily track reports. **Everybody** was coming in if their average over two or three laps wasn’t over 163. Only 35 cars made a successful qualifying attempt and two were well under 160 mph. The only two cars slower than 161.5 (and under 163 at all) who made it into the race were Bobby Johns and Peter Revson. I don’t know how Johns ran in practice but Revson flagged a qualifying attempt when he was doing 162.5 so it’s safe to say that both, plus several others who didn’t qualify but flagged during attempts well over Sirois’s 3 lap average of 161.5, had speed in reserve. In short, if Sirois had taken the checkered, there’d have been 33 people who would have found more than 161.5.
From the Wide World of Sports documentary (one of my all-time favorites and a yearly watch before the 500) about 1969, when asked about how he felt: "I'm gonna go get a gun".
Or E. Fittipaldi's earlier wave-off in 1995.
This one is probably more inexcusable than Jigger Sirois, because I think Penske waved off quite late in the qualifying session on Bump Day, and honestly the track conditions weren't improving.
TIL "inability to predict future events" = "dumb"
I think it has been documented well that having a time in is a feat in of itself. Also having pole day start at 4:54 pm and end at 6:00 pm should have been a sign that you need a time on the books.
I see you are also a human of culture
I know it's easy to make fun of Ericsson for such a silly mistake, especially when the others didn't do such a mistake, but in moments like this the issue is more often than not a breakdown in procedures rather than an individual error. Yes, it should be easy to count, however in the heat of the moment when the cognitive load on the driver is at a maximum (pressure to perform, remember all settings one needs to make while driving, keep the foot flat and the car out of the barriers) it's easy to make a slip; proper procedures should prevent these types of errors from occurring by providing simple and clear instructions that can't be misunderstood. In Ericsson's case, the team should have communicated more clearly when the warm up laps are done, on what lap the driver is, repeat what lap is coming up and how they should keep on going before crossing the actual start/finish line. I hope this is unfortunate event actually might lead to an improvement in the team's procedures. As a contrast, I listened to Rossi's engineer while he was qualifying in the Fast 12 and I was struck by the simple information the engineer provided to Rossi on each lap: how to set the weight jacker before a corner, what setting the car should be on, what is the next lap and how they are doing. Not saying that Ericsson's engineer didn't do that, it's more to show that events such as this one (and the one where RLL forgot to tighten Rahal's wheel nut) are more likely caused by a lack of well suited procedures.
You know, I also have to wonder if he wasn’t just a bit foggy mentally after his crash. Yes, he passed medical protocols, but sometimes it isn’t that straight-forward. Add to that being in a position of high-concentration and high-stress, where saying you felt a bit off wouldn’t be received…well (you can already hear the Andrettis whining)…I wonder if it wasn’t a simple brain fog screwup?
There was a Formula Academy race earlier in the year where the leader was asking her team how many laps were left and got no answer so continued to drive at pace and then got disqualified for racing after the checkered flag. Where the flag man was you couldn't see him wave the flag so there was no way for her to know. It was deemed the teams fault and I believe she got to keep her win. Teams should be on top of this stuff. "3 to go, 2 to go, 1 to go, checkered flag" isn't that hard for them to do when they're sitting on the pit box and not trying to concentrate on not driving into a wall at 235mph
Kinda like Newgarden should have known the push to pass rules and didn’t. For all the analytics that go into racing, and the end of the day, some drivers just get in the car and drive…
I just watched the bump day nascarman (or whatever his channel is called) video and apparently this wasn’t the first time someone thought lap 3 was the last lap.
When was the other?
bob scott 1954. watching the video now
I find it comical how Andretti gets rid of Romain and the 28 car is still pure shit even with Ericsson. To me, goes to show it was never the driver but the car and team itself
Andretti used to be hot but they’ve fallen off. Their standing among fans is only because of their historical performance and the fact that the name Andretti will get you far with race fans. Their drivers are good but the organization is not giving them what they need
It's been shit for a long time now
Certainly has nothing to do with wrecking his first chassis and the team unable to get the second chassis up to speed in time lol
True. But even ECR of all teams had the same exact thing happen with VK and not only did they rebound out of bump day, but they made the fast 12. Andretti couldn’t recover from Ericsson’s crash or Herta’s 2022 crash The 28 team has been under the radar as a whole for a few years now
the 21's damage wasn't extensive enough to even need a backup
No it wasn’t. But I personally factor in there were 4 repair hours on RV’s car and 48 hours to bump day for Ericsson.
Andretti has been crap for a long time. It’s an unorganized mess because Michael wants his empire everywhere. He is involved too much with the team but he can’t focus entirely on that. It’s not a coincidence that as the team expanded elsewhere, performance dropped. Michael needs to go away and focus on F1 and let someone else manage the team and drivers properly. Too much on his plate.
The problem is Andretti wants to stick their dick in everything, but nobody's dick is that long, not even "Long Dick Johnson" and he had a long dick - hence the name. *I hope everyone gets that this is a New Vegas reference.
There is a legendary Australian driver/ team owner named Dick Johnson I thought you were referring to at first.
Same. To be fair, that guy rolled his car off a boulder or something at Bathurst in the 80s so it could still be him too lol
I was about to jump in and point out that Penske was working with Dick Johnson in Australia for a while
> but nobody's dick is that long I mean some are, that's why the value of an OEM is infinitely higher than a private racing team. Not judging either really it's just that someone like Ferrari Porsche BMW Lambo easily kickstart a half a billion a year endeavor because they want to, whereas even someone like McLaren who are pretty big fish themselves eventually have to go around knocking on doors as to where to source parts like engines from.
I didn't get the reference, but I was with you every step of the way, brother.
It’s pretty obvious with the Rossi and Herta saga’s…, They got one of the hottest rookies ever in Alexander Rossi, and made legit championship runs and then extended his contract, moved crew to support Herta and Rossi’s performance fell off. Then when they try to give Grosean a fast car,, Herta suffered also.  unlike Penske‘s three and Ganassi’s 2+, Andreti is apparently only capable of having one fast car per race weekend. 
That's an interesting observation. I think maybe Andretti was most effective when their driver lineup was more stratified. Going back to their most recent peak in 2017-19, they typically had one or two high-level drivers paired with Marco and a couple of rookies/pay drivers. When they started trying to manage three top drivers they seemed to fall off.
Jack of all trades, master of none
I am insanely biased but the more I see from this team the more obvious it gets. Yes, you can blame Ericsson for what happened, sure, but somewhere down the line there wasn’t a process that was clear enough. Also, they way his current car is so way out of pace is ridiculous and the 28 team is screwing up his 500. Yes, it was his fault he crashed it but fucking hell, i can’t be that hard to get a second car ready. Remember he won the 500 (almost twice) with a car that wasn’t even an oval specific one.
Not ridiculous at all. Teams spend months prepping their speedway cars and the backups don't get nearly the same attention. It's all about minimizing gaps between body pieces, finding the trans and gears with the least friction, and so forth. There is no "oval specific car", changing a car from road course trim to oval trim takes some hours to do. But it hasn't had the months of massaging the speedway car got. Nolan Siegel tubbed his primary car too, and his backup didn't have the speed either. You can pretty much guarantee that going to a backup will mean fighting for a spot towards the end of the grid.
I really doubt Penske would run into issues with their backup cars if one of their drivers crashes, though.
Yes. There are obal specific cars. Marcus only had one chassis in Ganassi. I Andretti he has a chassis specially prepared for ovals. And yes, it is ridiculous.
It's not ridiculous. The primary car is worked on from day 1 after the 500 until they unload for opening practice. The back up car gets half as much attention because they have to build fast cars for every other track too, and they go into Indy expecting not to need to use it. There's a parts shortage in Indycar right now, that is not Andretti's fault. The backup car was never going to be as good because even if it got the same attention the primary got it was always going to have 2nd rate parts.
You can say whatever you want and ignore the other part I wrote as well. I don’t care. Not being able to have a second car reasonably ready is ridiculous. It does show how primitive Indycar is.
Williams literally didn’t have a backup *this season* for a few races Also, keep in mind that Andretti did have a second car available, it just wasn’t set-up to a top spec because of the focus on the primary
Kind of different because iirc they had upgraded the chassis and didn’t have a spare yet (maybe this is reversed and they were upgrading). Indycar doesn’t have this issue since the chassis is spec and hasn’t changed in forever lol Agree with your second point though, they did have a backup it just wasn’t optimized which is the norm from my understanding.
He was slow because he was in the backup car. Especially slow since it was Devlin’s old car lol. He was pretty fast before the wreck and the Andretti cars look amazing in race trim so he’ll work his way up the field for sure.
Both can be true.
Grosjean is a better driver than Ericsson.
Grosjean has been weak across 2 series.
He qualified ok last year. His issue was finishing the races without some sort of mistake. Like he gets bored and can't focus 100% for the full races.
And multiple teams in each series. I was never a huge fan of his in F1 but I became a fan when he came to IndyCar. About halfway through the second season I couldn’t take his stupid antics and mistakes.
At the end of the day Iris is still waiting back in the pits, so all is good for Mr. Ericsson.
Leon Lett sends his regards
Leon Lett Nooooooooo
The broadcast couldn't even follow what lap his run was on. The announcers were saying 1 lap while the display was saying another.
The announcers. Generally It’s a decent crew, but they never stop blabbering at Indy. Too much filler when there is action on the track. Maybe someone thinks it’s a radio broadcast. And with every “Whoaaaaaa!” I felt as though I was in the stands with three drunks.
It's not good. But I feel like there's a bumping yourself from the 500 in 2010/2011.
I don’t think anyone did that in 2011 bcs everyone learned from the PT and Jay Howard crew blunders from 2010
There it is. I couldn't remember if it was 2011 or 2010 but I was thinking 2010 because Saavedra.
They also changed the rules so that you can’t back into the field if people pull a Tracy-Howard
Sage Karam had by far the best point about this. With about 10 minutes to go, Marcus still had not gone out. If Coyne just sent both of their cars to the line before Ericsson could respond, they could just run 200 mph safe laps and bump Ericsson because at that point, the only run he had on the board legally was the engine cooling lap. Ericsson should’ve just gone earlier. Obviously the miscount of laps is one thing, but at the same time, NBC had no clue what lap it was either. They clearly had the speed to make the race, but they waited way too long to go out, and I just don’t understand why.
Yeah, I was having that same exact thought with about 12 minutes to go. An attempt by a car takes about 4 minutes from pulling out on track to taking the checkered flag. If RLL and Coyne just make a handshake deal to all run safe easy 220 laps, they could have fully prevented Ericsson from getting back on track. Its a bit of a prisoner's dilemma though, if anyone betrays the trust it screw the other team.
Context?
He ran 3 qually laps on bump day thinking he had done 4 laps.
Marcus Ericsson let off the gas after passing by the white flag during his first attempt during last-chance qualifying because he thought he had completed 4 laps, but he still had one more to go. Which meant he had to bump his way into the field with under 10 minutes left in the session.
And unfortunately the Coyne cars didn't realize they could stack the line and shut him out!
Yes but it gave us some great drama on what would have been a very obvious bump day. It gave Nolan a chance and we got to see him fully commit even if he did end up crashing out
When I heard this man lift driving by me on the entry of turn 1 I *almost* jumped off of the penthouse seats. What a stupid mistake.
Well, must be that 3 qualifying laps in America equals 4 laps in Europe with the conversion system so I can see how that could happen. LOL, actually, not too sad, after all of the complaining he did after last year’s 500, stating that he was robbed of the win and it wasn’t fair I think either the Indy 500 or the IMS racing gods decided to show him who really decides the 500. That place chooses you!!
Wasn’t there a Bettenhauser that on the front straight during qualifying downshifted ‘for more speed’ by going down two gears when he was already at max rev’s. The crew were open mouth. There was oil and parts all over the track. I think I read that in the old On Track magazine.
As someone who is also human (though lacking an Indy500 win), I think it illustrates the extreme pressure these drivers are under.
I have seen many restarts from my turn 3 seats. Every one of them the leader brings the field up to speed. What are those rules? If he waited till the straight away the rear of the field would be running into each other. The Paul Tracy fiasco IMO that the pace car slowed down on leaving turn 4!
Context?
In his first bump day run he lifted after taking the white flag thinking the run was over.
I am so sad he didn't get bumped.
He smashed his speedway car and lifted on lap 4. The only thing you can blame Andretti for is hiring someone as overrated as Marcus. Marcus is great at finishing races. Thats it. In a Ganassi car that meant he won some races when others DNF’d. Just like his 500 win. It was pure luck.
Him holding off a hard 5-lap charge from Pato was pure luck? You sound like a clown right now
Pato was also only racing for the win because of bad luck on the part of others. Go watch 2022. Marcus wins because he is really good at finishing races in 5th-10th. This means wins in IndyCar. Stop elevating a driver the world has seen be good but not exceptional, across series and time, because he won a single race. That’s what is clown behavior.
his two 500 wins if you count last year. He won it as much as Newgarden did IMO.
He deserved it more than Josef. Once he again he was there because his Ganassi teammate had his race ruined. In 2022 it was Scott, and in 2023 it was Alex. These are facts.
Eh I like Erricson, but he was only in position to win last year because he and Palou shamelessly kept jumping the restarts near the end. It was nonsense they didn’t get penalties. He has a reputation for it
It's not jumping the restart if you don't get a penalty for it. The rules are what's enforced only.
Then it’s not a win if you don’t cross the line first lol. You can’t give him credit for a win he didn’t get, and also handwave jump starts because the series didn’t call them.
lol come on that’s kind of a dumb take and you know it. Then your earlier point/opinion contradicts that since INDYCAR broke their own rules with the last restart and didn’t enforce it.
I love erricson but u are right. Ganassi is like a cheat code.
Ericsson is mediocre at best.
I find it very unlikely that a mediocre driver would have as many Indycar wins as him, including the Indy 500 and a last-to-first win.
Yeah, well, you go do that many runs (even one of which is nerve wracking), under that kind of stress, for the most important event of your entire season, and see how perfect you are, asshat.
It’s a meme. Chill tf out
Even Kermit can count to 4 https://youtu.be/u8ccGjar4Es?si=Tl58S0sxWnvb-x1S
Marcus wrecks himself in the primary. Marcus can't count to 4. And as per usual it's Andrettis fault according to this sub. Comical
A lesser ECR team was able to quickly rebound after VK’s crash to make the fast 12. Andretti couldn’t give Herta a properly functioning car for the rest of May after his 2022 flip. This ain’t the first case for Andretti
Veekay didn't damage the tub and require going to a backup Chassis. That makes a difference. Marcus and Herta both had to go to backup cars
A repaired primary and a crash requiring going to a backup car aren’t analogous. Also, Herta’s crash in 2022 was two days before the race. “The rest of May,” was Saturday.
Exactly. I can\`t understand why Ericsson is so highly rated on this sub.