Elton Sawyer: NASCAR 'did a really good job' managing last lap caution flag decision

Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, defended the sanctioning body’s decision not to immediately throw the yellow flag during the second overtime attempt of Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway after Ryan Preece went for a spin coming out of Turn 2.

Speaking on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Tuesday, Sawyer said they wanted to allow Preece every opportunity to get rolling so they could finish the race under green.

“For our fans, our goal at every event is to finish under green,” Sawyer said, via Dustin Long of NBC Sports. “That is what our goal is going into the weekend. But there’s circumstances that happened on the last lap at Indy. And I will go back to last year at Pocono, very similar situation with the same car. I might add, the 41. Both, we’re trying to give that car every opportunity to get started, get rolling and let the race end naturally.

“As we came off Turn 4 and coming to the start-finish line for the white flag [at Indy], it’s a two-and-a-half-mile racetrack, so you still have a lot of racing that can happen. As the cars started to get off in Turn 1, you’re starting to get closer to having to make a decision. That’s our process. That’s our mindset. The same as it was last year at Pocono. I believe the 41 had spun there in the tunnel turn.”

NASCAR defends its decision-making during Brickyard 400

Preece, however, had run out of fuel and couldn’t get off the back straightaway. NASCAR finally threw the yellow flag after the leaders had taken the white flag. That, of course, allowed Kyle Larson to take the checkered flag under caution.

Had the caution been called before Larson took the white flag, a third overtime restart would have commenced. Would that have changed the outcome? We’ll truly never know, but again, Sawyer believes NASCAR made the correct decision.

“Again, you give … the drivers every opportunity to get going but also the guys that are leading … As they are racing, you can’t let them race through a situation where you’ve got a car stopped on the racetrack. So that was our decision process and how we kind of digest that very quickly,” Sawyer said. “I might add we have now had the opportunity for 24 hours, 48 hours to kind of digest it. And I still go back and think our race director did a really good job in the way he managed that.”