Feathers ruffled after Rasmussen, Daly contretemps in Portland

IndyCar Series officials chose to take no action toward Ed Carpenter Racing’s Christian Rasmussen or Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Conor Daly after the two drivers made contact on three occasions across two consecutive laps during Sunday’s BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland.

The final incident fired Daly hard into the wall, which ended a volatile and escalating exchange which started when Rasmussen tracked out at Turn 7 and put both of their cars into the grass. Once they returned to the tarmac, Daly chased Rasmussen down the front straight and tagged the back of his car in Turn 2. The last meeting in the high-speed Turn 10-11 section saw contact ship Daly across the grass and into the barriers with enough force to lift his car off the ground.

Although a request to speak with IndyCar’s race control was denied, RACER understands the inaction by the series’ stewards is likely a result of its avoidable contact rule which places the responsibility on the overtaking driver – Daly, in this case at Turn 10 – to complete a clean maneuver.

In isolation, the conclusion to the three bouts of contact met the definition of IndyCar’s Rule 9.3.3 regarding avoidable contact, but ignores the first and second incidents which escalated and seemingly led to the fateful conclusion with Daly in the wall.

"It was an eventful day here at Portland,” Rasmussen said after finishing 12th in the No. 21 Chevy. “The start of the race went really, really well for us. I was moving up on the black tire and was up to the 12th position. As the race settled in, the black tires became a struggle for us to manage. I had an incident with Conor (Daly), which put us back in the field and we were in recovery mode from there. Through strategy and decent pace on the red tire, we fought our way back up to 12th. I am happy with that and I am really looking forward to a couple of ovals to finish the season out. I have a good feeling we can end this year with some strong results."

Daly, who was seen and cleared by IndyCar Medical, was less charitable in his comments.

“I saw him drive Colton (Herta) almost into the wall on the back straight, and so that's how I got Colton and that position,” he said after finishing 26th in the No. 76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevy. “He (Rasmussen) was quite slow, and so I tried to pass him into [Turn 7] and then, again, he drove himself off the track to make sure that I drove off the track. I'm not really sure of the point of that. It kind of seemed stupid, in my opinion.

“Then he was really slow down the straight, and I just went to pass him and then he just never stopped. That's a really dangerous corner to try to do that. I feel like I had a lot more grip on [Firestone alternate tires] and I was pretty happy to turn in from there because I did it the lap before on Colton, but he just never stopped. I would say that was quite an unsavory move and I don’t really understand it. So yeah, that was a shame.”