The NASCAR senior vice president of competition, Elton Sawyer, defended the sanctioning body’s choice to hold off on raising the yellow flag when Ryan Preece went into a spin going out of Turn 2 during Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the second overtime attempt.
In an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday, Sawyer stated that they wished to give Preece every chance to get going in order for them to complete the race under green.
“Our objective at every event is to finish under green for our fans,” Sawyer stated, as reported by NBC Sports’ Dustin Long. “We have that as our objective heading into the weekend. However, something happened on the final lap of the Indianapolis 500. And I’ll go back to the same car and a very similar scenario from last year at Pocono. The 41, if I may add. We’re attempting to give the car every chance to start, move forward, and let the race finish organically for both of us.
“As we approached the start-finish line for the white flag [at Indianapolis], we noticed that the racetrack is just two and a half miles long, meaning there is still a lot of racing yet to be done. It’s getting closer to the point where you have to make a choice as the vehicles began to exit Turn 1. That is how we work. That’s how we think. The same as it was at Pocono the previous year. There, in the tunnel turn, I think the 41 had spun.
NASCAR argues in favor of the choices made at the Brickyard 400
But Preece was out of petrol and was unable to leave the back right away. After the leaders took the white flag, NASCAR eventually threw the yellow flag. Naturally, Kyle Larson was able to proceed cautiously after receiving the warning.
A third overtime restart would have started if the caution had been raised prior to Larson raising the white flag. Would it have had an impact on the result? Though, as previously said, Sawyer thinks NASCAR made the right choice.
Once more, you provide every chance for the drivers to start moving as well as the people in the lead to do so. You cannot allow them to race through a situation on the racetrack where a car is halted. Thus, that was how we arrived at our decision and how we quickly processed it, according to Sawyer. “I should also mention that we now have a full day and a half to sort of process it. And looking back, I still believe that our race director handled that quite well.
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