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Sunday, the Huge Machine Music Metropolis Grand Prix concluded with an exhilarating lap and 1 / 4 dash on the streets of Nashville for the checkered flag. Six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon held off his compatriot from New Zealand and sophomore driver Scott McLaughlin to seal the win. The race victory was the 53rd of Dixon’s IndyCar profession, placing him second on the all-time wins record, solely behind A.J. Foyt. Nonetheless, this transient sprint solely occurred as a result of a purple flag was thrown when a automobile was punted into the wall. However the story to come back out of Nashville, occurred behind all of that.
Throughout a restart with 5 laps to go, Penske’s Josef Newgarden obtained an amazing run as the sector went over the beginning line. From eighth place, he instantly flew previous Andretti’s Alexander Rossi and Colton Herta for seventh and sixth. Newgarden has his sights set on passing a 3rd Andretti automobile for fifth place via the primary nook after the restart. He threw his automobile between Romain Grosjean and the within wall. Because the pair rounded the nook, Newgarden couldn’t maintain his line and made contact with Grosjean, sending the Andretti driver into the wall and out of the race.
Josef Newgarden completed sixth within the race and stated in a post-race interview:
“Welcome to IndyCar. It will get tight. You recognize he’s been on a worse finish of that. I don’t know what to inform him, . Good factor I used to be forward. That’s the most important factor. You’re gonna need to be forward of this man on any such second. However yeah, it’s tight road course racing.
Let me inform you what, I might about obtained taken out six occasions myself. You recognize, in all probability gonna have to have some dialogue with among the youthful guys. However, they’re simply, they’re aggressive. They’re very aggressive. And if you happen to’re not aggressive again, then you definately get run over. In order that’s IndyCar racing. You bought to be taught that fairly fast. I don’t prefer it, however that’s the sport that we’re in.”
Throughout the race broadcast, commentator and former driver James Hinchcliffe noticed it otherwise whereas watching a replay, noting, “I feel the two went in with just a little bit an excessive amount of velocity. You recognize there’s no means Romain noticed him coming. He was three automobiles again when Romain turned in.” It’s troublesome to not agree with Hinchcliffe when seeing from how far again Newgarden divebombed his automobile to get alongside Grosjean.
The incident was clearly Newgarden’s fault, however a number of drivers primarily posted that Grosjean deserved it on social media. Romain Grosjean, a second-year IndyCar driver, has raced his opponents fairly aggressively this season, together with a notable incident in Alabama the place he and Graham Rahal made gentle contact.
It additionally doesn’t assist Grosjean’s case along with his new colleagues that he entered IndyCar as a ten-year veteran of Formulation 1 and survived a near-fatal fiery crash in his ultimate F1 race. The Frenchman was voted IndyCar’s Most In style Driver by the followers in his rookie season with nearly a third of the vote.
There was animosity in the direction of Formulation One stars from IndyCar’s veterans for no less than a decade. In a 2013 interview in Forbes, four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Hélio Castroneves stated of Formulation One’s drivers, “I solely like drivers which you can depend in your fingers and that’s it. The remainder of it’s simply prima donna drivers and spoiled youngsters.” That small group of drivers primarily amounted to his pals and everybody else robotically put within the latter class. Issues haven’t modified since then, with Newgarden’s teammate Scott McLaughlin discounting any criticism over the incident as imply tweets from F1 followers.
Racing incidents and rivalries occur in motorsport, however as a lifelong IndyCar fan, this clique mentality is completely different and has at all times rubbed me the mistaken means.
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