No penalty for Karam after Honda Indy 200 spin

Karam continues to ruffle the establishment

Juan Pablo Montoya thought Sage Karam had spun out on purpose during Sunday's Honda Indy 200. So, too, did a number of Verizon IndyCar Series fans. Unsurprisingly, Race Control disagreed.

The league issued its weekly post-race infractions report on Wednesday, and Karam's name was not on it. The biggest infraction was Dale Coyne Racing's Rodolfo Gonzalez being fined for a visor miscue. There was not even a mention of the solo spin that prompted a caution and that led NBCSN commentator – and fellow IndyCar driver – Townsend Bell to call it "a little suspicious."

That probably won't sit well with Montoya, but it's not a surprising decision from a Race Control team that's shown a relative unwillingness to discipline Karam all season. Though the Chip Ganassi Racing rookie has been on probation since the Dual in Detroit, no action was taken against him for his on-track driving or off-track confrontation with Ed Carpenter at Iowa, nor his apparent block of Graham Rahal during Mid-Ohio qualifying.

Karam told the media in a post-Iowa conference call that Race Control informed him that he'd done nothing wrong. and suggested pre-race at Mid-Ohio that he considered criticism "picking on the rookie."

Saying that a driver crashed on purpose is a serious accusation, and it may be that IndyCar officials didn't feel they could conclusively prove that Karam had intentionally spun his car. Whatever the reasoning behind Wednesday's decision, fans – and maybe even some drivers – might take issue with the fact that the rookie continues to cause controversy without real consequences. Brittany Frederick/The IndyCar Examiner