During last weekend’s Sonsio Grand Prix at the Indianapolis road course, Alexander Rossi’s #20 Ed Carpenter Racing machine ground to a halt on the pit straight with hybrid issues.
Rossi’s car stopped on Lap 21, off the racing line and against the pit wall.
The car was left stranded for a lap under a local waved yellow flag, while cars tore past at high speed before the track was placed under full course yellow (FCY) conditions.
Commentator James Hinchcliffe theorised during the broadcast that the FCY had not been thrown to allow the entire field to complete their mandatory pit stops.
A statement from IndyCar and IndyCar Officiating further clarified the decision making process.
“On Lap 21, car No. 20 lost power and stopped on the front straightaway on drivers’ right of the track – off the racing line.
“Course marshals followed standard flagging protocol and deployed a standing yellow condition at Marshal Panel 14, with a corresponding waving yellow condition at Marshal Panel S/F (start-finish) to alert competitors to the stationary car.
“The escalation to a full course yellow (FCY) was made on Lap 22 as the driver began to exit the race car.
“Following race control practice, the assessment of whether and when to escalate a local yellow to a FCY included the weighing of the following standard factors: driver egress, vehicle position, recovery vehicle access, safety team locations, laps remaining and the timing of approaching traffic to the incident.
“Additional factors on timing of a FCY also included pit windows and the running order of cars on track.”
IndyCar Officiating will implement a change to the procedure, stating it “will no longer take into consideration pit windows and the running order of cars on track before deploying a FCY.”
“The Lap 21 incident on Saturday made clear that there needs to be a cleaner standard for how race control moves from a local to a full course yellow,” said Raj Nair, Independent Officiating Board chair for IndyCar Officiating.
“IndyCar Officiating, with IndyCar’s full support, has made this change of approach to ensure that the only inputs to the full course yellow escalation are safety ones.
“Streamlining the assessment will also save time as competitive considerations are no longer a factor.”
IndyCar president J. Douglas Boles detailed the importance of driver safety as the highest priority for race control.
“The most important job in race control is to ensure the safety of our drivers, crews, safety workers and fans,” said Boles.
“Saturday highlighted that we must not waver from that central mission and aligning everyone on that philosophy was critical to discuss over the last 48 hours.
“The Independent Officiating Board, the new managing director of officiating, race director and IndyCar are all in agreement and the metrics used to determine when to initiate a full course yellow will now ensure that when there is any risk to driver safety that race control will initiate a full course yellow.”
The NTT IndyCar Series will implement the change at the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 24.
Cars have already hit the track for Practice 1, which was topped by Alex Palou with a best speed of 225.937mph.
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