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Hinchcliffe says "IndyCar can't read their own rulebook"

James Hinchcliffe was livid after he was penalized for interfering with the lap of Will Power.

James Hinchcliffe, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda

James Hinchcliffe, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda

Vision Sport Agency

James Hinchcliffe, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda
James Hinchcliffe, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda
James Hinchcliffe, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda
Another full course yellow
James Hinchcliffe, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda
Mikhail Aleshin, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda
Mikhail Aleshin, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda
Mikhail Aleshin, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda

Hinchcliffe was fourth fastest in Group 1, which was good enough to advance to the next round. However, IndyCar officials stripped him of his best lap, dropping him out. Consequently, he will start 13th in race where passing should be a difficult task.

The team fought the call and Hinchcliffe remained in the car as they awaited a final verdict, but their efforts were to no avail. The Texas runner-up then turned to the media to vent his frustration.

"There's no question we should have been in there. IndyCar can't read their own rulebook," Hinchcliffe told TV.

"They haven't penalized us improperly in like a week so we were probably overdo for it. At a track where it's going to be tough to pass, it's really disappointing. We put a lot of work into the aero car, made it a lot better than yesterday and we had P4 in that session. 

"We lost our fast time on an incorrectly enforced rule."

What did he do wrong?

The rule in question relates to the inference of a qualifying session. When a driver causes a yellow or red flag, intentionally or not, they will be penalized. But as Hinchcliffe noted, there will not be a local yellow for cars that continue moving. The No. 5 never came to a complete stop, but the yellow flag still came out.

"I didn't stop moving forward, but the yellow came out anyway, so that is their mistake.

"Even if a yellow flag does come out, all cars in that sector must slow down at least 15% from their best sector time. Will (Power) clearly power didn't do that because they didn't think it was a yellow because it wasn't a big deal. So he should have been penalized if I was penalized."

Hinch concluded in frustration, "We're starting way further back than we deserve to be for really, no reason."

Not the only SPM driver left angry with race control

The driver that benefited from Hinchcliffe's penalty was his Schmidt Peterson Motorsports teammate Mikhail Aleshin. However, the Russian driver found himself just as frustrated when he too was penalized by race control after advancing to the Fast 6. He had his two fastest laps disallowed for interfering with Juan Pablo Montoya's lap.

"I knew that Montoya was behind me, I moved to the right side, and then they gave me the penalty. Not only one lap, but they took out two fastest laps, which were identical. I think that's not very fair," an irritated Aleshin explained.

The SPM teammates were far from the only drivers targeted during qualifying, which led to the suggestion from Power to extend qualifying sessions in the future so that drivers wouldn't be on top of each other. "If you had a bit more time, you could pick and choose ... It's not the driver's fault."

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