No slowdown on St. Petersburg’s controversial restart

Derrick Walker said he and his three race stewards had no problem with Will Power's initial restart in Sunday's Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg which resulted in an incident in the back of the field. But they weren't happy with the eventual winner's final restart on lap 87.

"We all thought that first restart looked very slow but, after looking at the replays and car data following the race, there was no brake checking by Will or slowing down," said Walker, IndyCar's president of competition and operations. "He brought the field down at the pace car speed and accelerated exactly where he was supposed to and it was a good restart. And Johnny (Rutherford, pace car driver) did exactly as we asked him and pulled off late.

"The trouble was that some guys near the back pulled out of line and paid the price."

Rookie Jack Hawksworth got sideways and collected Marco Andretti on the lap 82 restart. After that wreck was cleaned up, the cars crept through the final corner in single file before Will applied the power – way too early, according to Walker.

"He accelerated too soon on the second one and earned himself a warning," said Walker. "Had the race continued and he did it again, we would have penalized him." racer.com