Honda and the Honda driver is really sticking it to his face...
If there was no financial crisis that spooked Honda out of F-1, I wonder if Honda could be where Mercedes is today... and it'd be Sato battling with teammate Hamilton for the championships...
Nah...
It was a master cylinder problem, apparently.
Aside from any red flag discussion, I feel like the Indy 500 is one of those things that TV networks should really stay with if it runs a little long. It's one of the biggest sporting events of the year.
In the age of high speed internet, is it really that big of a deal if the network can't continue to cover the race?
Any major network should also have some sort of live streaming app, right?
Or just add a time limit to the race? If the race ended up with so many freaking yellow and red flags... just shorten it to Indy380 if the clock runs out?
Pushing the Indy 500 race ending onto a streaming service is not going to happen in today's world. The outrage would be huge. This sport is still mostly followed by an older generation that is focused on tradition and would not want to try to figure out the NBC Sports app in 15-30 minutes (you have to log in with your cable provider info), and likely would have little chance of getting it to work on their TV in that amount of time.
The tendency of red-flagging races to do a green-white-checkered finish is a recent thing, plenty of races have finished under yellow over the years, and red-flagging causes all kinds of non-timing related issues. Many of the lead cars were already gambling on fuel, adding in the extra laps they would have had to run for red flag procedures would have probably left them empty. The wreck that caused the yellow happened in front of a number of cars and threw debris over the entire track, potentially leading to cut tires. Those tires would then have to sit for an indeterminate amount of time, getting cold, then get brought back up to temp, and not tested again until people went nuts on the restart at 230 mph. I get that we could have had an exciting finish, Dixon didn't think Sato had enough fuel to finish, but I think they did the right thing.
Get that weak shit off my track
Keith is right about tradition and the Indy 500. It's gotta be the race most unchanged in its traditions out of all of them. On that point, does anyone think they'd change it from a 500-mile distance race to a timed event after 104 years?
Another thing: NBC Sports streaming required not only a cable subscription, but a sports package on top. Generational or not, it's just so much easier to turn on the TV and tune in over the air.
Does the 500 not have a 75% distance clause that could be enacted, for example if it’s rained out late in the proceedings?
Yes, the race has been shortened due to rain before: https://www.indianapolismotorspeedwa...ry/rain-delays
Get that weak shit off my track
Here's another break from tradition, has there ever been an Indy500 race with empty grandstands?
And there hasn't been one in August, but it was either that or not run the race at all.
Get that weak shit off my track