As IndyCar’s rules for pit lane procedures are written, Kyle Kirkwood did nothing wrong on Sunday afternoon as he attempted to turn into his pit box with the No. 27 Andretti Autosport Honda.
Alexander Rossi – the former driver of the No.27, with whom Kirkwood made contact – was also a blameless party in the unintentional incident that was triggered when he was exiting his pit box and did his best Roman Reigns impression by spearing Kirkwood.
Rossi’s race was ruined on the spot as the crisscrossing cars collided; his No. 7 Chevy needed repairs to its suspension which cost the team multiple laps. Despite being briefly slightly delayed, Kirkwood’s day was unaffected until an unrelated suspension failure took him out of the 250-lap contest.
Where heat and scrutiny began to rise with the situation was in the NTT IndyCar Series’ decision to penalize Rossi rather than Kirkwood, who was initially thought to have breached protocol. NBC’s commentators went hard against Kirkwood during the broadcast, which then led to a volley of criticism directed at Kirkwood on social media, but at least one host later apologized to the sophomore driver after getting a better picture of the situation.
As series has instructed its teams and drivers, those in the outer lane — the ‘fast’ lane — are the top priority on pit lane when it comes to decision-making. Those in the middle lane — the ‘transition lane’ — are second on the priority list when drivers either pull away from or pull into their pit box. Last on the list are those who are in their pit box.
Drivers are also told to remain in the fast lane until it’s time to steer into their pit box; they’re only allowed to drive straight within the transition lane on approach to their pit box in the rare instance of finding some sort of blockage in the fast lane.
Otherwise, turning from the outermost lane across the transition lane and into the pit box, as Kirkwood attempted to do, is precisely what’s expected of each driver.
Whether Kirkwood did or didn’t make a late turn out of the fast lane to meet his Andretti Autosport pit crew sitting four boxes down the road from Rossi’s Arrow McLaren crew is immaterial. Unlike IMSA, which has a regulation that limits how soon drivers can start turning towards their pit box, IndyCar drivers are free to choose — within reason – when they start to turn out of the fast lane to make a pit stop.
Despite being unable to see each other from the confines of their open-wheel race cars, Kirkwood followed all of IndyCar’s rules for pitting, and accordingly, was not penalized. And Rossi followed the instructions from his team to engage first gear and fire out of his pit box after service was complete, but was deemed to be a rule-breaking instigator.
Their collision, a surprise to both parties, was initially attributed by the series as a breach of Rule 7.11.1.10, ‘unsafe release of a car from its pit box’, which led to a lap 62 drive-through penalty for Rossi. It was later revised to a violation of Rule 7.11.1.7, ‘contact with another car,’ which is an interesting adjustment as the penalty gives the impression of shifting the blame from the No. 7 Chevy’s crew to its driver.
Rossi followed orders from Brian Barnhart, his car controller, and was understandably incensed when he was told to serve the penalty. It’s here where a few points have emerged that would be worth evaluation by IndyCar and its rule makers.
Just as drivers have adopted the somewhat recent practice of exiting Turn 2 on ovals and weaving hard left to indicate to those who are following that they will be pitting — a signal to steer clear because they will be slowing significantly in a few seconds — it seems like a similar conveyance of information to crew chiefs and car controllers about a driver’s intent in the fast lane would do wonders to avoid future clashes.
It’s a miracle that dozens of crashes aren’t the norm on pit lane at every race. But thanks to the incredibly talented and quick-thinking outside front tire changers or car controllers who reside on the timing stands and decide when to release their drivers from the pit box, they are rarities.