Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. Due to the high volume of questions received, we can’t guarantee that every letter will be published, but we’ll answer as many as we can. Published questions may be edited for length and clarity. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will appear the following week.

Q: I can’t help but wonder if Simon Pagenaud’s slow return to the 60 car is by design from Meyer Shank. With the buzz that both seats would be changed next year, are they purposely slow playing his return to the car to get the opportunity to give Conor Daly an audition along with Tom Blomqvist? I get the feeling we will not see Simon back in the 60 this year. What are your thoughts?

Joey, Boynton Beach, FL

MP: This isn’t a plot by Mike Shank and Jim Meyer.

“That’s total BULL****!!!!, and you can put that all-caps and put a bunch of exclamation points behind it,” Shank told me yesterday. “Whenever Simon’s cleared, he’s back in the car. It would uncomplicate my life more than you know, if we knew for sure he’s going to be back at Nashville. Whenever he’s clear, he’s driving.”

So, there’s no scenario where the team doesn’t want Pagenaud back in the car ASAP. As it looks to 2024, and as we revealed earlier in the year, Blomqvist is expected to move up and into a full-time IndyCar seat, and while Simon isn’t signed beyond 2023, there’s a lot of value to having a champion and oval ace like Pagenaud positioned next to mentor Tom as a rookie.

Shank’s desire to have Pagenaud back for the next race does have some urgency, since Blomqvist won’t be available due to racing MSR’s IMSA GTP car at Road America that weekend. That could lead to Daly, or another driver of MSR’s choosing, to being on standby until Pagenaud’s availability is known. And with the No. 60 Honda having fallen to the wrong side of the Leaders Circle cut off line, Shank and Meyer have more than the issue of who will drive the car to solve in the five races left to run.

Q: Someone needs to penalize race control. The confusing penalties or lack of penalties is frustrating, but what happened Sunday in Iowa should cost someone their job.

The quick yellow when Canapino brushed the wall was a NASCAR move, but the lack of immediate yellow for that loose tire is inexcusable. That could have been launched into the stands. Multiple cars went by it at speed. The AMR Safety Team could have been there in the amount of time between when it came loose and when the yellow was thrown.

While we are at it, whoever was responsible for letting Sting Ray make it to pit exit should be suspended.

Ryan in West Michigan

MP: The 7.5 seconds I counted between the wheel’s exit and the caution light going on — which is about a third of a late-stint race lap at Iowa — wasn’t a good look. In the Canapino yellow, I counted four seconds from the time he glanced off the wall to the yellow being triggered. Bear in mind that the folks in race control aren’t necessarily watching the same NBC feed as the rest of us, so if their attention was on a camera in another corner, or dealing with a different issue, it would have taken the call from a volunteer corner worker or series’ spotter in Turn 3 to alert the tower, or someone in the tower pointing to one of the dozen screens to point the problem out.