Scott Dixon says that he has some sympathy for the predicament that IndyCar president of competition Brian Barnhart was in when he made the controversial call to restart yesterday's race at New Hampshire despite the wet conditions.
Barnhart has been widely criticized for the decision to attempt to finish the race under green, which resulted in chaos when Danica Patrick lost control and triggered an accident involving several cars. Title contender Will Power, who was caught on camera gesturing toward race control after becoming one of the casualties that resulted from Danica Patrick's spin, was among those who claimed that they'd told their teams that the conditions were too dangerous to restart.
But Dixon, who finished third, said that the conditions had briefly started to improve before suddenly deteriorating again just before the green flag.
"The last call was kind of confusing," said the Target Chip Ganassi Racing driver. "It had dried up. It did start raining on the last lap coming to the green. But regardless, whether it should have or not, it still went green. It is a tough call. I wouldn't want to be the one trying to decide.
"Obviously, there's going to be a lot of pissed-off people with a bunch of wrecked cars on the last restart where they think they probably shouldn't have gone back to green. It was a bizarre day."
Barnhart also highlighted that changing conditions at the end of the race, but conceded that the restart had ultimately been a mistake.
"When it's not raining and it's not dry, it doesn't take a lot to get them to haze the tires, get wheel spin, and with the stagger, turn them around," he said. "You look at how far out of the corner Danica was and going straight...it shouldn't be in a position, when you put the power down, that you lose control. As soon as you make that call and see the result, you realize that it wasn't a good one."