Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward says IndyCar was “calling for a massive shunt” by not throwing a caution immediately for his spin at Toronto, which led to a massive multi-car pile-up moments later.
O’Ward was on course for a top-six finish when he was caught out by rear-end locking and lost control of his car as he negotiated the first corner, in the shadow of Toronto’s signature Princes’ Gate.
Although eight cars missed him, Marcus Ericsson put his car into the outside wall in avoidance before a trio of Pietro Fittipaldi, Santino Ferrucci and O’Ward’s team-mate Nolan Siegel slammed into the nose of his car.
Ferrucci’s car was launched into the debris fencing, while Siegel’s was sent back across to the inside of the track, where he was collected by Toby Sowery.
“I had rear locking,” explained O’Ward. “It spun and that's pretty much the end of that.
“I am so surprised IndyCar didn’t call a yellow. Like you're just calling for a massive shunt. They had a solid five seconds to call yellow and tell everybody that was coming.
“But I'm glad everybody else that was in it is fine. Sorry for the team. Obviously, we were having a better race than what we've had all weekend. It's really been miserable.”
Ferrucci also criticised the lack of yellow flags, and says he never saw O’Ward until he struck him. He had been fighting back after an earlier trip into the wall at Turn 1 on the opening lap, which required him to pit for a new nose and he was struggling with bent steering.
“First off, I'm very, very thankful to the IndyCar medical team,” said Ferrucci. “[The] cars are so safe to have a scary accident like that, just to walk away fine.
“I never saw Pato. At the start of the race, I had the steering wheel bent trying to avoid Pato and we were left-hand up, right-hand down [for the rest of the race].
“When I came through there, I never saw Pietro clip him and nothing on the spotters. There was no yellows, nothing. I didn't know to check up and just super unfortunate, I was trying to take care of equipment, trying to have a recovery day and just a bummer.”
