IndyCar Officiating has announced that, beginning next week, it will release post-event reports. The reports will be available for all of IndyCar’s on-track sessions, including races, qualifying and practices.
IndyCar Officiating Incorporated (IOI) is in its first year of existence as an organization with hopes of being separated from IndyCar and its parent company, Penske Entertainment. IndyCar Officiating is governed by its Independent Officiating Board (IOB), made up of board members Raj Nair (chairman), Ray Evernham (secretary and treasurer) and Ronan Morgan (FIA appointee).
The IOB has recently introduced Scot Elkins into the fold as the managing director of officiating (MDO). Elkins, who is seen as the CEO of IndyCar Officiating, told media the week of his onboarding in May that IndyCar Officiating must “be more communicative about what’s happening and where things are happening.” These reports are his first initiative toward that, and the first one will be released following Sunday’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway.
“We have moved quickly but meticulously in applying this next step in greater officiating transparency,” Elkins said in a news release. “Our goals include increased consistency and clarity as these reports look to provide an additional resource toward structure and process. We look forward to implementing this next phase beginning at WWT Raceway.”
Said Nair: “One of the takeaways from the initial months of IndyCar Officiating was a need for thorough infraction communication and, in some cases, comparison to prior rulings to continue our goal of transparency and consistency in rule implementation. This post-event report will be clear in structure, process, and findings.”
How will the IOB reports work?
Reports will be released publicly at noticeboard.indycarofficiating.org. In a Zoom Elkins and Nair had with select media explaining the reports, Elkins was noncommittal about revealing when the reports should be expected, other than saying they’ll be out in the week following races.
“We haven’t done this yet and we’re not sure what it’s going to look like,” Elkins said. “So ideally, we’d like to get it on a regular cadence, but until we do it a few times, I don’t know that we’re going to know what that is.”
Elkins shared a draft of one of these reports, using May’s Indianapolis 500 as an example. The report was split up into a sporting section — which contained penalties that occurred on track at all Indy 500 sessions — and a technical section — which contained the post-race penalty given to Chip Ganassi Racing and the post-qualifying penalties to AJ Foyt Racing and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.
The sporting section explained which driver received a penalty, what session it occurred in, what the infraction was, what rule in IndyCar’s rulebook was cited and what the penalty was. The sporting section will also contain items that were reviewed with no further action, such as contact that didn’t receive a penalty, no penalty for potentially jumping a restart, etc.
The technical section contained detailed explanations of infractions, including how the penalty on Alex Palou’s No. 10 CGR Honda was different than the 2025 penalty given to Callum Ilott’s No. 90 Prema Racing Chevrolet, for which Ilott was disqualified from the Indy 500.
The Indy 500 report will be published on the website once the draft is finalized.
Technical penalties will now be classified via three levels of infractions, with Level 1 being the least severe (point deductions and fines) and Level 3 being the most severe (disqualifications and suspensions).
While the infraction levels provide a framework for IndyCar Officiating to look at after failed tech inspections — which will now be run by new technical director Nick Allen following Kevin “Rocket” Blanch’s retirement — assessing the level of an infraction is still up to IndyCar Officiating’s jurisdiction.
“It purely gives us within IndyCar Officiating a reference to look at, and it also gives the paddock and you a reference to look at as well,” Elkins said. “The ultimate decision is always going to be up to the IOI, irrespective of what the guidelines necessarily say.”
Elkins will put the race reports together with the assistance of those in race control and technical inspections. He claimed it will be a “team effort” when writing up explanations of certain infractions.
These reports won’t change the timing of when failed technical inspections are announced, which is typically within a few hours after a session ends. They also won’t affect the timeline for teams’ appeal requests, which must be delivered to IndyCar within three business days of a penalty’s announcement.
Much of the frustration surrounding the failed technical inspections for the last two Indy 500s came due to a lack of clarity about what the penalties were, if they were allowed before and what penalties deserved an outright disqualification. While these new post-event reports won’t be published immediately after race results are made official, IndyCar Officiating has introduced some transparency as to the process behind penalties given out by race control and technical inspections.
“We certainly were brought in because of the perception of conflict of interest. That’s no secret,” Nair said. “In the time that I’ve been here, I’ve seen none of that. … There’s nothing broken here. And the changes that we’ve been talking about have been what I would call evolution versus revolution.”
IndyCar Officiating will reveal a level of detail in officiating decisions that the series hasn’t provided in the past. Should the reports be published in a timely manner, they should give a greater understanding of why some calls were made, whether they’re controversial or not.
Zion Brown is IndyStar’s motorsports reporter. Follow him at @z10nbr0wn. Get IndyStar’s motor sports coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Motor Sports newsletter. Subscribe to the YouTube channel IndyStar TV: IndyCar for a behind-the-scenes look at IndyCar and expert analysis.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar Officiating to release post-race reports detailing penalties and infractions
Reporting by Zion Brown, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Zion Brown, Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY Network
