0:00 / 0:00
IndyCar 101: Ferrucci's Penalty, and Michael Saves the Day

IndyCar 101: Ferrucci's Penalty, and Michael Saves the Day

Off Track with Hinch and Rossi Jun 03, 2025 21 min
0:00
0:00
Immersive Mode

About this episode

The hosts dive into the recent IndyCar penalty for Santino Ferrucci involving an underweight driver ballast, discussing the nuances of combined car and driver weight rules and comparing it to previous penalties. They debate the fairness and clarity of IndyCar's enforcement and penalties. The conversation then shifts to a humorous boating mishap where a mechanical failure stranded them, leading to a timely rescue by Michael Andretti, who towed them back while multitasking a business meeting. The episode blends technical racing insights with lighthearted personal stories, highlighting behind-the-scenes moments in racing life.

Topics: indycar penalties driver ballast rules weight regulations santino ferrucci penalty michael andretti rescue boating mishap race tech inspections penalty fairness debate indycar race updates behind the scenes stories
Select text to request an explanation
This is, is off track.
Hello and welcome. Hello. Welcome.
We're doing this old school Crunch. Crunch. Crunch, having a snack.
Um, dude. All right. Tuesday episode.
This is gonna be a fast one, guys.
Uh, 'cause we all have lives and we all have things to do.
And quite honestly, I, my day was, uh, booked, um, and then it became unbooked.
So what happened? I wanted to join you guys.
Oh, we'll, we'll talk about it later. I think.
I think we need to have a rapid response first to some big news that came out.
IndyCar News that came out yesterday post Detroit Grand Prix.
What happened? This is the second time in two races
that the second place, man, a lot of twos.
2, 2, 2. That the second place guy has gotten penalized.
Yeah. Don't finish. Second in Gateway
Wasn't planning on it.
I mean, there you go. He got to
he got to keep it this time.
Yes. But he lost all of The points, which is
What anyone cares about.
Like no one really cares about the Trophy.
So for those that weren't paying attention, Santino Ferucci, the, the 14 AJ FO car was found to have an underweight driver, ballast.
Um, their, their car total was over the minimum weight, but the driver ballast was not weighted.
Mm-hmm . So, mm-hmm . What is a driver? Ballast.
So there needs to be a combined car and driver minimum weight.
So there's kind of a minimum weight for the car itself that rolls across the tech pad.
And then there is a, a weight for the driver.
They've kind of set the driver average, not kind of, they have set the driver average weight at 185 pounds.
So when we talk about how drivers have to go weigh in on Friday after practice when they remember, or Not Too soon, no, Alex missed 10 minutes of practice because in Detroit, 'cause he forgot to do this.
But you get 15 minutes at the check and flag of, We weren't gonna learn anything .
I do like that they make it the last 10 minutes of the session just to like really screw you.
Um, so you've got 15 Minutes, I don't know, Detroit, Detroit practice two, the end of the session's usually a cluster.
So anyways, whatever, doesn't matter. You got, you got it
Designed that way.
Go ahead. So yeah, you got 15 minutes
after FB one to get to tech weigh in whatever amount under 185 you are.
That's how much you have to add as your driver balance.
So if you're a hun over 185, kind of tough luck.
You're sorta, you're sort of just carrying around a little bit of extra weight.
That's, that's what driver be Is necessarily, not necessarily, Not necessarily.
'cause you can, there's weight savings that can be done on the car.
Right. So ultimately your combined weight
in theory could be the same as someone that weighs 130 pounds if you're able to get the car Lighter.
So there's not a minimum weight on the car itself?
No. So the minimum combined weight,
the minimum weight is the combined weight of the driver, the ballast and the car With like x amount of fuel in it or something. Yeah.
Got it. Do you remember what that number is?
It's like, it's like 1700 and Pounds, 1780 is what comes to mind?
I don't know. It's something like that. Or 17. That's five
DI have the email from IndyCar yesterday. I feel like doesn't
Matter.
Doesn't matter. The, the point, the point, the point
of the matter is that Santino had zero performance advantage whatsoever because what matters in terms of lap time on a race car on a racetrack is the overall weight, the weight you're carrying around for the entire lap.
Right? It doesn't matter that the car
didn't have the correct amount of weight in the alleged spot that they were supposed to put it, not the alleged spot in the spot.
They were supposed to put it in theory, I guess you could argue that there's a weight distribution thing, but like none of this was done.
Again, I don't think out of any sort of intention.
It was very similar to the penalty that I had in 2022.
In DGP where we won the race rolled across the tech scales.
We were over the, the minimum weight, combined weight, but they pulled out the water bag, which I had in the car, the entire race.
Right. And the car fell under,
and technically the water bag cannot be used as ballast even though that it was something that was in the car for the entire race that was affected.
So your your total weight was legal, but the way you got there wasn't Correct.
Identical to Santino.
So, okay. Now obviously this was not like Marcus
Erickson's penalty where he was moved to the back after the fact, right?
Um, and you just said this had no effect on the actual legality of the combined weight of the car.
But like did the attenuator have anything to do with, or did, did the, did the changes that Marcus had done have anything to do with like, did that actually have a performance value? Two
J Wait, just so we're clear, I zoned out for a second there.
We did mention that the car was overweight on its own, right? Yes.
So that, and by the way, it's 1,785 pounds the minimum. There
You go.
Pretty close. So what was the question?
Why, why was Mark was thrown in the back and so Yeah. Was thrown in the back
And, and I understand the idea that like this was an accident where the other ones you could argue were, were clearly they intended to break the rule or, or flirt with the rule.
But like, did the other penalties that had really harsh responses, like the Attenuator or like Marcus Erickson, did they have a competitive advantage from them?
Or is it just because it was blatant?
I think, I think, well Alex, it's kind of your theory.
I mean we talked about this and you kind of had the theory being that yeah, one was a, an human error, intentional modification of a part, right?
Regardless of whether it was for a performance advantage at aesthetic advantage, a fit, like just to make it physically fit versus this was sort of an oversight, like a, a human error thing.
Is that, 'cause we've not, I don't think, think we've actually heard from anyone officially why the penalty was what it was.
It is in line with what we're used to seeing. Right?
25 points. $25,000. That's what you got in in DGP.
That's what I got at Texas. There's a precedent for that.
It was the indie ones that seemed a little more outside the realm of what we're used to.
And I that, you know, this is kind of your theory as to why that is the case in this particular situation.
Right. I think as, as much as malicious is an unfair word,
um, there's, I think two can be viewed as intent to live in the gray area or to break a rule or to try and be clever or whatever.
And the other one is purely a human error or like you said, an oversight sort of thing.
Um, so yeah, I think that's why there's the discrepancy in penalties.
Again, this is all assumption. I'd love some clarity on it.
Like it'd be nice if, because I feel like a lot of people are confused.
So Yeah. I'm surprised that there's not like someone
that said, Hey, we get why this would seem weird 'cause we just did this a week ago to the second place car for a much more severe penalty.
And these are the reasons why this is not the same case.
'cause like I think that would be nice to hear.
So I don't watch nascar, but I feel like in cup, I always see on social media when they have a penalty that's given for somebody failing tech, they will do some sort of video where they'll show the part that didn't match or they'll go through and explain, you know, this was like this, this is how we caught it, this is why this penalty was given.
Yeah. So I feel like that would be helpful.
NASCAR's got a bit more of a history of this and, and again, this is something that we were talking about is we're used to in NASCAR on like a Monday hearing a litany of, all right, so it's almost like an expected thing.
Here's who's getting, you know, a $10,000 fine for a lug nut being loose or mm-hmm .
Here's, you know, x all the way up to here's a hundred thousand dollars and a hundred po owner points and a suspended crew chief.
Right? Um, where like we have not really had that
and it, it almost seems like we're entering this world where now it's like just a matter of who and what will be dinged in, in post qualifying or race tech.
Again, nothing wrong with that, if that's kind of understood to be, you know, the thing that like the, the, the methodology moving forward.
I do think it's a, it was a bit of an oversight on the IndyCar side to not offer an explanation just in light of what we've been through in May to different scenarios with multiple high profile disqualifications, however you wanna call it.
Um, and not having some clarity on why this one, why this penalty realm is different.
I'm sure there is a good reason, but when I go and look at, you know, the response on Twitter or Instagram or whatever, it's the number one question.
It's like, well why is he allowed to quote unquote keep the second place?
Um, so it's, you know, we assume that's what it is.
Surprised that there's not a little bit more clarity from IndyCar on that.
I imagine when we get to Gateway, some journalists will ask that question to somebody who knows that answer and we'll all be smarter for it at the end of it.
But for the time being, there's still a little bit of, of question mark as to why important thing is no discernible performance advantage for Santino.
So nobody should care. Really.
This is just a, it's a tech thing.
It's just a, it's a simple rules thing.
The amount of driver ballas he was supposed to have in the car was not correct, even though the total amount of wa in the car was assumedly more Than 10, 10 pounds over the minimum weight of the car. .
Yeah. The only thing is,
I don't think anywhere has actually stated how much under the driver ballast was.
I didn't see the email, but I can go back.
We're, I don't think it's said it in email. We're we're, I
Love how Tim has referenced this email like four times.
He just loves to get the email.
He just loves it. He's on the media
list now. I, he's like, well, you
Guys know, know my fomo. It's
True.
I don't get the email. I still think,
I didn't think this was the kind of thing that you'd be About.
I wanna, I wanna be involved in everything.
Also, I'm, I'm going to say this just because we stressed this when it came to Marcus and, and, um, Kirkwood and, and everybody who got the, the penalties are qualifying around the 500 and, and after the 500, nothing to do with the driver. .
Santino, Santino wasn't loading the ballast, right? Mm.
No, no, I'm kidding. I'm kidding not.
So yeah, so that's, that's like the IndyCar news of the day.
We've got the full Detroit debrief coming, uh, obviously on the Thursday episode as per usual.
Um, that felt, Wait, before we get to the boat stuff, because I know we did what Boat stuff.
I thought that's where you're transitioning.
What do you assume it's boat stuff?
Tim, I'm just interrupting again.
Sorry. Before we transition off this. Okay.
Knowing what you guys know now, I feel like you've, you've kind of hinted at the fact that you don't think he should have had the rate, I have to edit this in five minutes. ,
like S sake Tim James saying, You know, that it, it seems like you're implying you agree that he should not have had the second place forfeited or is that, is that not what you guys are saying?
No, I'm not saying that. I think, I think there just needs
to be a little bit more clarity and understanding as to why two tech infringements happened and there was, sorry, three tech infr, sorry, four tech infringements hap sorry, six tech infringements happened.
Um, and there was post-event penalties, yet five were essentially the same and one was different.
I, I am gonna say that I do agree he should not have lost it, just as I agree that Marcus, Kyle and Callum shouldn't have lost theirs.
It's more just the explaining and understanding the differences to why one penalty was what it was versus the other for me at least.
Uh, but yeah. Do I think that a guy should,
do I think any driver should lose a second place because their driver balance was off by a pound or two?
No, I do not points fines. Sure.
Rule books exist for a reason, black and white, all that stuff.
I get it. But, uh, no, fundamentally I don't think
that someone should lose for something like that.
Anyway. Uh, little bit of, little bit of time off,
uh, before the next race.
So, you know what, like what was on your list of things to accomplish this week?
Alex?
Well, James, um, I, uh, I I I think people know that I, I have a boat.
Um, yeah, we've Talked about The boat and boats.
Boats like, like cars, like electronics, like whatever they have warranties.
Mm-hmm . And uh, I, um,
my warranty is expiring at the end of the month.
Um, I obviously have not had much time this past six weeks.
And why doing, I don't envision, oh, just stuff and babies and cars and stuff.
And I don't envision that I'm gonna have much time coming up in the next three weeks with two races and such.
So took advantage of a beautiful day.
You, uh, are a couple friends of ours, Connor Christian, uh, decided to take a little nice Tuesday afternoon wake surf session.
Mm-hmm . And um, I don't know, about an hour in,
after we had lunch, Connor was, was surfing behind the boat.
Everything was going fine. He was doing great.
We were having a great time listening to music in the sun, pretty empty lake.
And we just hear a bang and we start slowing down and Connor doesn't start slowing down .
And fortunately like he had the, like, the wherewithal to like turn left and not run into the back of the boat.
'cause we don't need to be breaking race car drivers obviously.
Um, and it would seem that we had some sort of drive line catastrophic failure, whether that's drive shaft gearbox, it's not the prop prop's fine, but the engine just revs and there's no spinning of the proppy so you don't go Anywhere.
Lot of clunky clingy noise. A
Lot of clunky, which, so in the moment I was like, uh, what do I do?
Because what do you do in that situation?
Um, so you recommended that I call them Marina, and I called them Marina, and they just laughed at me. Were,
That was the Best part.
They were like, and I was like, okay, well if you don't have a tow service, that's fine.
Do you have like a number of like, I'm sure there's a guy that can, would love to take 500 off me, right.
To come tow me in. And she was like, uh, no boaters
who are in this situation just rely on other boaters to be nice and help them.
And I was like, cool, cool, cool, cool. Tight, tight, tight. It's
A neighbor lease system.
Yeah. So, uh, my buddy got on the phone to one
of his friends to see if he could help.
And I called, uh, our good friend, the three of, I mean friend of, very good friend of all of us, Marissa Andretti.
Um, because obviously Michael lives on that lake, maybe not obviously, but Michael lives on that lake.
And, um, I was like, Hey, is your dad home?
Or if he's not home, is there someone at the house that wouldn't mind coming and rescuing us?
And she laughed for about 30 seconds and I was like, yeah, I'll, I'm on it.
And no less than 10 minutes later, Michael Andretti was rolling up on a pontoon.
He was in the middle of a business meeting.
So in, in, in very much Michael fashion, he just took the guy out on the pontoon with him and they continued having their meeting as they toed us into the dock, which was incredible.
It was, it was just a comically hilarious situation.
I mean, I just, I do wanna go back to the point where it all happened and Connor's behind the boat, not a, not a super experienced wake surfer, right?
Mm-hmm . But I've always looked at wake surfing as like
the safe, safest thing, safest kinda recreational thing that a driver sports can do.
Midseason, right? Yes.
Like of any kind, like we, how many guys have broken You?
You're going nine miles an hour, Nine miles an hour into water.
Like what's the worst that could happen?
Evidently when the boat just like pulls the e-brake on you and you're using the boat for propulsion and you are hanging right off the back of said boat.
Um, Connor does deserve Arnold mention for not just driving straight into the back of the thing and losing Some teeth. Yeah. And
Losing some teeth.
Maybe a couple stitches wouldn't have been great.
Uh, hilarious. And then, yeah, the visual of just all
of us sitting in the boat as we get towed back to the marina by Michael Andretti was of, Of all people So amazingly comical.
And to, to Connor's point, there were four racing drivers in some capacity on that boat.
All of them at some point in their life had driven a car owned by Michael Andre .
And Kind of when I saw his tweet, it reminded me of Marissa's wedding because it was you, you were up there with them.
It was you, Marissa, and Greg.
I was like, ah, just three of Michael's employees, Just, and, and it was, it was funny 'cause like, um, I didn't, I didn't really know like what kind of mood he'd be in about it all.
Um, and he was just loving it.
'cause he was like, Hey man, you're lucky I'm retired now. ,
Yes, you're right. Yeah.
This is opening line rocking up. It was, it was hilarious.
And then yeah, as he's telling us him and the guy he was with just kind of continued their, their chat on the boat, their meeting.
So very, uh, yeah, very Efficient.
The next, the next big concern was, so this, I I'm, it's a, it's a very large boat.
It's a heavy Boat boat.
It's a heavy, heavy boat, big boat.
And I, I was a little concerned about how we were gonna get it on the trailer because previous vehicles that I've owned, um, kind of required you to power load it a little bit for fear of ending up on qualified captain because you back your truck or your car or whatever too far down the, uh, E Ex explain power loading.
Power loading. That's when it's the trailer's in the
water, but not all the way.
And you just use all 600 horsepower of, you know, Elmore Marine engines to just power your way onto the trailer.
Um, because this boat, you can't, you can't winch on like, it's not, I mean it's, it's Too heavy. It,
I mean, it's, it's pushing 10,000 pounds, right?
So, um, it's not a little fishing boat or whatever.
So thankfully, um, I've got a, uh, I've got a very big three quarter ton Chevy diesel durmax, uh, company car that we backed that bitch like in to the lake.
Um, and we were like, well, should be fine.
Uh, and we were able, apparently when you submerge the entire trailer, um, into the lake in half the truck, then you can easily bring the boat on because it's not on anything.
It's truly still floating in the water.
Um, and yeah, we, uh, we pulled her out, um, and it's going in to the shop tomorrow.
Already made the call, already made the booking.
Uh, and they were like, sweet, your warranty is valid.
Um, and we will get on ordering parts immediately, I think. So
The takeaway here is if you are stranded on Geist, um, Michael Andrei will save you.
He's, he's retired.
I think that's, that is what he's doing. Thinks
Happy to become.
I think the takeaway is that either all products are meant to fail in and around warranty time.
Yes. Uh, so anything that you have
that has a warranty expiring, go use the out of it right now.
Go throttle the thing for the last month to Yeah.
To make sure it is good to go try to force that.
Yeah, a hundred percent. Um, yeah, I frankly,
I think Michael's sitting on a great business idea.
'cause evidently there is nobody on Geist that does any kind of towing service. And
Look, instead Van Auto Sport, it's Andretti Towing.
It's like those hikers that get lost and then it turns out Harrison Ford saves them.
Have you heard all those stories?
It's happened more than once. It's like, it's that,
I've heard stories Like That from landing on wrong runways.
Yeah. Or golf courses. Well,
the good Harrison giveth the good Harrison. Take it
away. , .
I'm sure that's a saying.
But anyways guys, that's our Tuesday.
Um, definitely tune in, uh, for Thursday.
'cause all the nitty gritty that you want to hear about Detroit, um, is there, we talk about it.
Just real quick, 1.06 million peaked at 1.2
for Detroit. Not bad.
Congrats. Congrats. Pretty happy with that.
Very good James. Not a bad place to be.
And we're just gonna keep that rolling, man.
It doesn't happen overnight, but we're making progress every week and things are moving along.
So love that team. Oh,
This First appearance.
And here is our guest for the Tuesday episode. Baby
Ben.
I know Buddy so much.
I don't know. He's flailing.
Anyways, guys, great to see you.
This has been off track with Hinch and Rossi.
Off Track is part of the Sirius XM Sports Podcast Network.
If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, please give a five star rating and leave a review.
Subscribe today, wherever you stream your podcasts.
We are at Ask Offtrack on Twitter and Instagram.
And if you wanna follow us on Twitter, we're at Hinch Town and at Alexander Rossi.
If you wanna follow them though, we have no idea why you would.
He's at the Tim Durham on Twitter.
Find us on YouTube and subscribe to our channel for exclusive video content.
Off Track is produced by Tim Durham, and by that we mean fi.

Request an Explanation

Heard something you'd like explained? We'll add it to this episode.

Sign in to request explanations for terms you heard.

Want to learn more?

Browse our glossary for plain-English explanations of automotive terms, jargon, and concepts.

Explore Terms

More from Off Track with Hinch and Rossi

Sting Ray Robb
Jun 4, 2026
Detroit Recap
Jun 3, 2026
The New Champ
May 28, 2026
500 Recap
May 27, 2026