139 - Data Transparency - Conor and Gateway Winner Josef Newgarden Discuss IndyCar’s Restart Challenges

Speed Street

It was an eventful night as the IndyCar Series held a showdown at dusk in St. Louis, and after a chain reaction spin-out in the beginning stages our host Conor Daly rebounded to a well-fought 13th place finish. He joins co-host Chase Holden to chat about the weekend at Gateway and how he felt his new Juncos Hollinger team struggled to find the pace they had at the hybrid test a couple of weeks ago. They also analyze which drivers looked to be on the brink of disaster during qualifying and how Team Penske seemed to be at ease behind the wheel. Conor delivers an in depth play-by-play breakdown of what caused his early spin and some of the other on-track calamity he raced around. He also dives into the controversial late race restart and illustrates how the stack-up wasn’t completely the leader’s fault.

Race winner Josef Newgarden joins the show to give his side of the events. He reflects on the power Team Penske showed and gives credit to his team for bringing such a strong fleet of cars to the track. He also details his mid-race spin and how he was able to rebound from it to find himself in victory lane. Josef gives listeners insight to what took place from his perspective on the late race restart that claimed his teammate Will Power, Alexander Rossi and others. Josef explains that while he feels bad that Will and others were caught up in a mess, he did nothing wrong except try to execute a race winning move that would protect his lead from a charging Scott McLaughlin. Josef would love to see more transparency from IndyCar in the way of in-car analytics, similar to how SMT data is available in the NASCAR world. He and Conor also debate the ongoing problem with aggressive restarts in IndyCar and what measures can be taken to prevent future crashes of similar fashion.