IndyCar Technical Guru Will Phillips discusses the penalty assessed to the GM racing teams in the Dan Gurney Media Center.
Friday's first day of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach got off to a rainy and potentially controversial start as the Chevrolet-powered entries praying for Sunday's 38th running if the Grand Prix will replace their engines prior to Saturday's qualifying session.
The move was brought on by an engine failure in James Hinchcliffe's Team GoDaddy.com
Andreti Autosport Chevrolet during a testing session at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma. After inspecting the blown engine, the manufacturer decided to replace all the engines in the cars running their V-6 package before Saturday's qualifying session.
However, under the rules set out by the IndyCar Series, teams that change out their engines prior to reaching a minimum mileage threshold of 1,850 miles are subject to a 10-position penalty in the next race. As a result, all 11 cars were subject to the penalty for Sunday's race. What it means is that none of the drivers will start higher than 11th with the race begins.
Despite the appearance of heavy-handedness by the sanctioning body, GM agreed with the penalty and said it was worth the price to be proactive in terms of driver safety.
"This is certainly a decision that was not made lightly ," said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing IZOD IndyCar Series Program manager is a statement released about the penalty. "We intently discussed the situation with our partners and our teams prior to determining that this was the best course of action to preserve the integrity of the racing in the IZOD IndyCar Series."
The reaction from the drivers who were affected by the penalty varied from outrage from Ryan Hunter-Reay to a somewaht philosophical pragmatic response from Marco Andretti, who posted the fastest practice time during Friday's early practice.
"Right now, it comes down to the availability of engines for Indy (the Indianapolis 500). I will tell you what, if I don't have an engine for Indy I'm going to be upset," said Andretti in a post-practice press conference. "I'd rather give up 10 positions here, so you have to look at the big picture on stuff like that. "
Qualifying for the 38th running of the Grand Prix is Saturday afternoon followed by Sunday's race at noon.
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