Oilpressure

If you watched Formula One’s Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia at Jeddah this past weekend, you saw a race that was far from perfect. In fact, the officiating was somewhat of a nightmare. This is not about Formula One or Sunday’s race that saw Max Verstappen penalized, while Lewis Hamilton went on to victory. Confusing, chaotic and controversial are just a few of the words used to describe Sunday’s race.

So why am I leading off with the race at Jeddah if this is not about F1?

After the race, Marshall Pruett put out a tweet that rubbed me the wrong way, and he used Sunday’s Formula One race as a measuring stick. He compared the fiasco in Saudi Arabia to this year’s Music City Grand Prix and called it the biggest s**t show since the IndyCar race in New Hampshire, which was responsible for Will Power’s infamous double-bird salute.

I’ve always enjoyed Marshall Pruett’s writing on Racer.com. Since Robin Miller’s passing, he is one of the few I regularly seek out for news in the IndyCar world, after my subscription to Trackside Online. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he has to say, however his news reporting is very accurate. But his tweet struck a nerve with me.

I usually do my best to not engage on social media. It is a pointless exercise. Nothing you say will ever change anyone’s mind, no matter what the subject – politics, IndyCar racing, pineapple on pizza, the pros and cons of candy corn or whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie. For the record, I like pineapple on pizza, I love candy corn and Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. It is an action movie that happens to take place during Christmas.

This time, however, I had to respond. I don’t know if it was my hometown pride or just the fact that I felt he was being unreasonable.

The trouble with the Nashville race was the track design and some overzealous drivers. Some turns were just too tight, especially for those drivers that felt the race had to be won on the first lap. Having the re-starts begin on the straight in front of the stadium and the pits also presented problems. Supposedly, they are strongly considering having all re-starts start at the same point the race started – coming off the bridge. Will that also be the finish line, or will that still be in view of those expensive suites behind the pits?

It really ticked me off when Pruett said “…Nashville deserves its place atop the pantheon of garbage”. The Music City Grand Prix was a first-time event. I think most of us looked at the layout and had questions about how well it would race. I think given a couple of years to tweak the course the local officials will create a very raceable venue.

Jeddah and New Hampshire were officiating fiascos. Except for failing to penalize eventual race winner, Marcus Ericsson for launching himself over the back of the car of Sébastien Bourdais (and destroying it, in the process); I don’t recall any major officiating gaffes. OK…Will Power tried to single-handedly take out his other three teammates. The problem was lots of crashes and multiple red flags that had the end of the race bumping up against darkness.

Track design flaws are excusable for an inaugural event. While it was not a great race from a viewer’s standpoint, it was a fantastic event to attend. The racing will come, but if attendees have a bad time at the first event – they won’t come back.

IndyCar officials were to blame for throwing the green flag in the rain at New Hampshire. You didn’t need a crystal ball to know that cars were going to go sliding as soon as they took the green on slick tires. That was a s**t show. Nashville was not.

Maybe if Pruett had been onsite for the weekend, he may have felt differently. Instead, he was home in California watching it on TV – apparently with a very critical eye. I’m not sure what he expected. Had he not seen the layout before? Considering it was a first-year event, didn’t he realize that this was probably going to invite a few crashes?

My suspicious nature wonders if this goes deeper than it appears. Sunday was not the first time that Marshall Pruett has used the term "s**t show" to describe the Music City Grand Prix. He used the term immediately after the race, almost gleefully. It’s as if he wanted to see the event fail.

Not everyone can like all the circuits on the schedule. Many here take it personally when I make critical remarks about Belle Isle – when I have never set foot on the grounds there. But I waited about twenty years before publicly denouncing it. Pruett was taking shots at the Music City Grand Prix before Ericsson stepped off of the victory podium.

Am I declaring war on Marshall Pruett? Absolutely not. He is too good of a reporter to do that. Plus, in order to declare war on someone, they need to know who you are. Marshall Pruett and I have never had a conversation. I see him in various media centers, but he walks on by without really saying a word to anyone.

I’ll simply end this by saying what I said in response to his tweet. It is absurd and unfair to compare a first-time event like Nashville to New Hampshire. It will be improved next year. New Hampshire never got a next year. End of rant.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on December 8, 2021 at 4:03 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.