INDYCAR: Andretti slams 'unsafe' dome skids

Marco Andretti is one of the bravest drivers in the Verizon IndyCar Series, but after running the dome skids on his car at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Tuesday and Wednesday, he's concerned that the 100th Indianapolis 500 is going to be less safe and not as much fun to watch.

Designed to keep the car on the ground after it gets sideways, the dome skids have raised the ride heights - and at least one temper in Gasoline Alley.

"We put the dome skid [on the car] makes it safer in spin, yes, but everyone ignores the fact that to have to raise the ride heights 10 flats, which makes the car undrivable, therefore unsafe," Andretti said after turning the overall fastest lap of 223mph in his Snapple Honda before rain halted the action at IMS early Wednesday afternoon.

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"I'm not ever one to talk about safety and it's the normal political fight, but at this point it's not Honda trying to get an edge; it's Honda even trying to be able to compete. And the level of frustration right now is unbelievable. We have Chevy sandbagging, they're out there doing 216s, and everybody sees, they're complaining how fast I am. [A] 223 is slow on opening day in May, so they're gonna have to do better than that."

Without at least the downforce-helping strakes inside the underbody being mandatory in May, Andretti thinks it's going to be impossible to race.

"We need the cars raceable, which right now, when we don't have underbody downforce, they're undrivable alone, let alone in a race and when the track temp is up. We have to think of the show and none of the drivers think of the big picture. We've got to think of the 100th running and putting on a awesome show, but they [Chevy drivers] don't care."

Andretti said the only way he could race close to another car was if everything was on under the floor.

"[IndyCar's not even] letting us have as much grip as last year," he said.

The 29-year-old veteran was asked why the Chevy drivers didn't seem to be as outspoken about dome skids as he and fellow Honda driver James Hinchcliffe.

"It's different because they're in a Chevy and they tried to say we were equal to them last year. We're not," said last year's seventh-place finisher. "We had two Hondas in the top 12 at Indy and it was a miracle. I mean I see their side, but they're not losing their competitive edge, they're still going to have that.

"And everybody forgets. We changed the qualifying rules for Chevrolet [here] last year."

Hinchcliffe has the same worries.

"I think the bigger issue is the quality of the racing. I think if you run without strakes you're taking so much downforce away from both [Honda and Chevy] that you really run the risk of not being able to race each other. We've seen such good racing with this car since it came out in 2012 and we don't want to mess with that formula.

"It's not about equivalency, it's not about what's fair for one manufacturer or another. It's about putting on a good show at the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 and I think that's what most of the guys are worried about."