Ahead of this season, the NTT IndyCar Series created an independent officiating system to oversee rule enforcement within the series.
Instead of IndyCar’s own internally appointed personnel making and announcing officiating decisions, those are now completed by an independent entity.
IndyCar Officiating Inc. is run by a three person board, with motorsports veteran Ray Evernham and technical expert Raj Nair joined by Ronan Morgan, who was appointed by the FIA.
The arrangement was created in part to give a strong appearance of impartiality, especially when considering that Roger Penske owns IndyCar as well as a team competing within the series.
Team Penske was also the focus of multiple rules infractions over the past couple years, spurring reactions from members of the paddock that ranged from skeptical to angry.
Responding to a question by Motorsportweek.com, long-time team owner Chip Ganassi described his satisfaction with how the new arrangement has been working six races into its existence.
“I think they’re off to a good start,” said Ganassi. “Nice and solid. They didn’t come in and upset the apple cart, if you will.
“You got guys that are on that committee that are truly interested in the betterment of the sport. They know you can’t just come in and start turning things upside down and changing everything.
“They’re taking their time to learn the business, learn the industry, and I couldn’t be happier with bringing that level of people into IndyCar racing at whatever job title.
“It’s great to have people like that involved in the sport.”
All in the details
Already this season, IndyCar Officiating has been forced to rule on a couple infractions and has also recommended a few changes to procedure.
During Indy 500 qualifying last weekend, stricter rules were put in place that required cars to immediately complete a post-run inspection rather than taking photos on pit lane.
And at the recent Sonsio Grand Prix, a delayed full course yellow call left Alexander Rossi in a dangerous position stopped on track for over a minute.
Just a couple days later, a change in procedure was announced that put an end to the practice of considering pit stop cycles when making a decision to bring out the safety car.
Ganassi expanded upon his positive opinion of these and other decisions, praising the transparency and speed which they have been announced.
“Yeah, we always wondered why they [IndyCar officials] couldn’t do that anyway. We have always wondered why they don’t just come out and tell people.
“Oftentimes, they will call a penalty during the race and the fans don’t understand why. They never responded to that.
“That’s what these guys will do. They’ll say ‘Hey, we gave that guy a penalty because this, and this, and this.’
“It’s not always clear to the fan what the infraction was and then they question the calling of the penalty. Being in the business, you know why they called that penalty. But nobody takes the time to tell the fans that ‘this was the infraction,’ or ‘something happened in the last race’ or ‘the last corner.’
“All these things, you never hear about. But I think you’ll see a bit more transparency now with this new group of guys.”
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