INDYCAR: Penske and Ganassi back new steward arrangement

IndyCar's top two teams, Penske and Ganassi, have backed the behind the scenes overhaul carried out by the series over the winter.

IndyCar SEO Mark Miles replaced the outgoing Derrick Walker with Jay Frye as president of competition and operation, and Frye subsequently introduced a three-man panel of race stewards and brought in former engineer Bill Pappas as vice president of technology.

Leading team bosses Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi expressed satisfaction  with the changes, including a simplification of IndyCar's penalty system.

"There is a certain calmness around that I like," Ganassi said. "Jay is a calm guy and you can talk to him – he doesn't purport to know more than everybody about something. He has experience with a lot of teams and he knows what the sport needs.

"I don't think they could have done much better by getting a more current guy. It's a good start to tell us what are and what aren't penalties. It needs some fine-tuning but it's a start."

Penske added: "The benefit you have with Jay is he was a team owner [in NASCAR] so he has gone through the trials and tribulations. So you have a better opportunity with him to have a level playing field and not change things overnight. We have to worry about the same thing in NASCAR, where we keep changing the rules and every time you change it, it costs us money.

"The three stewards is a positive – they have taken out about 25 of the penalties that were warnings that we don't have now. You are either black or red now – not in the middle – and that's good."

Ganassi believes the scrutiny around IndyCar's direction is nothing new for IndyCar racing.

"I've been around IndyCar racing since 1982 and not a year has passed when somebody hasn't asked 'What's wrong with IndyCar?' he said.

"People feel the need to opine about the running of the sport or their own reason why they feel it is up, down or sideways. Because it's had so many management changes over the years it's easy pickings to take shots at.

"At the same time we are still here, we are still racing and things seem to be on an upturn lately."

Originally on Autosport.com