Pit Road Debacles Hamper Hopes for Several Contenders
May 30, 2016 | By Phillip B. Wilson
Say this for so many in Sunday’s 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil, they sure were in a hurry to exit pit road.
And that aggressiveness proved to be the undoing of several race favorites.
In what became a reoccurring theme, several cars sped out from their pit boxes and into the far second lane without realizing the threat of oncoming traffic. Too often, after saving precious seconds with efficient pit stops, the advantages were squandered as the frantic mass exodus resembled demolition derby.
Two of Andretti Autosport’s strongest contenders, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Townsend Bell, saw their race chances come to a realistic end as they played bumper cars on Lap 117 at the end of pit road.
Hunter-Reay, pitted in front of Bell, pulled out. Bell, seeing Hunter-Reay, sped toward the far lane, but didn’t see Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves coming. Bell bounced off Castroneves and into Hunter-Reay.
Bell, assessed a stop-and-go penalty by race stewards for the incident, finished 21st. Hunter-Reay, the 2014 Indy 500 winner who had qualified third, had to settle for 24th.
“He was pulling out and I’m not going to stop,” Bell said. “What a shame. We had a great race car and we were saving fuel early.
“We pit, I get out before Ryan and he starts going. So I’m going around him outside and I didn’t know a car was coming down. I guess the three of us were trying to occupy space for three cars. I took me and Ryan out. I’ll look at it, but I don’t know what I could have done differently.”
Bell is a “one-off” driver competing in only this series race this season, but he has experience from eight previous “500” starts. Hunter-Reay, an Andretti Autosport regular, also had eight previous Indy 500 starts.
“Something out of our control happened,” Hunter-Reay said. “They said, ‘Go, go, go!’ It looked like Townsend got into Helio and bounced into me. At that point, I would have just have waited until they got by.
“As a driver, you can’t see anything (beside you in the pits). When you release, you go. The car was so strong. The only time we ever spent any time (slower) was because I was saving some fuel. Other than that, it was a rocket ship. Such a shame when you have a car like that. The car was great. We could have won this thing today.”
Series points leader Simon Pagenaud of Team Penske was also sent to the back of the field as a penalty for bumping Mikhail Aleshin while they exited the pits on Lap 66.
“I really thought we had the car today,” Pagenaud said.
The parade of pit road punishments began with 2014 series champion Will Power of Team Penske, who was sent to the back of the field for an unsafe pit release after he bumped Ganassi Racing’s Tony Kanaan while they exited on lap 48.
Power, who finished a career-best second in last year’s Indy 500, finished 10th.
“We made it as best we could,” Power said. “Despite the penalty, we still made it back to the front, but it just didn’t go our way towards the end.”
In addition to the three pit safety infractions, Pagenaud and Oriol Servia also had to restart from the back of the field after speeding on pit road. Five cars, including Bell and Pagenaud, were ordered to restart from the back of the field after they entered a closed pit on Lap 158.
Pagenaud saw his three-race series win streak snapped with a humbling 19th-place finish. Servia finished 12th.
Buddy Lazier made an improper pit exit on Lap 55 and Gabby Chaves was twice punished with drive-through penalties after he received full service in a closed pit on 160 and had an improper pit exit on Lap 169. Lazier placed 30th and Chaves 20th.
“That just killed our day,” Chaves said of the two infractions.