NASCAR: Response too weak to the “manipulation” of the Martinsville results?

While Ryan Blaney's (Team Penske) victory, giving him a chance to win a second consecutive title this weekend, is uncontested, in the pack, it's a different story! Sixth in the race, William Byron (Hendrick Motorsports) is in a ballot for the last qualifying spot for the final, facing Christopher Bell (Joe Gibbs Racing), nineteenth, and the first driver one lap behind. If the final results are the same, Byron qualifies with a small point advantage over Bell. If Bell manages to gain a position, or if Byron loses one, the two drivers are tied, and it is the Joe Gibbs Racing driver who qualifies for the final. Hendrick represents Chevrolet, Gibbs Toyota, and this will have an importance for the future.

In the last twenty laps of the race, William Byron lost his pace, and it seemed inconceivable that he could keep his position that allowed him to qualify for the final. If Bell could not overtake anyone, given that he was one lap behind the leaders, Byron could easily lose places. Behind him, a real barrier was going to form, Austin Dillon (Richard Childress Racing) and Ross Chastain (Trackhouse Racing) deciding to place their Chevrolets side by side, on a short and flat oval, where overtaking three abreast was mission impossible. The entire end of the race was therefore going to take place with Byron leading a train of cars side by side, without risking losing his sixth place, notably to the benefit of Brad Keselowski's Ford (RFK Racing), who had one of the fastest cars that day.

Penalties that are truly dissuasive?

Byron therefore crosses the finish line sixth, his part of the work done. We must now wait for Christopher Bell to pass, who should more than likely finish nineteenth, since he has no one in front of him on the same lap. However, Bubba Wallace's Toyota (23XI Racing) mysteriously slows down in the last few loops, loses a lap to Ryan Blaney, and is overtaken by Bell in the last corner. The latter, surprised to see Wallace slowing down, enters the curve too quickly, hits the wall and decides to accelerate against it to cross the finish line as quickly as possible. He finishes eighteenth, and therefore qualifies for the final, with the same number of points as Byron but better results in this phase of the playoffs.

Logically, the race management does not immediately validate the results, and decides to investigate, in order to be able to decide and give a list of four qualified drivers that is as fair as possible. Blaney, as well as his teammate Joey Logano and Tyler Reddick (23XI Racing) are certain to play for the title in Phoenix by virtue of their victories, it is on the last place that everything is played out. And after about twenty minutes of deliberations, the sentence falls, Christopher Bell is penalized for having voluntarily driven against the wall at the very end of the event, posing a safety risk, and it is William Byron who qualifies for the final. No decision was made concerning the actions of the last laps, at least initially.

That week NASCAR announced penalties intended to be dissuasive, accusing the teams of Chastain, Dillon and Wallace of having manipulated the outcome of this Sunday's race. Fines of $100 and 000 penalty points were applied, while the chief mechanics and spotters of the three drivers in question are suspended for the Phoenix event. The same sanction for executives from each team, who will not be able to travel to Phoenix for the final. The desire of Elton Sawyer, NASCAR's director of competition, was therefore to dissuade the teams from attempting the same maneuvers in the future. The three teams immediately appealed.

Manufacturers take power in NASCAR

Are these penalties really a deterrent, knowing that the four finalists are always the same? If William Byron wins the title for Chevrolet this weekend, we can bet that the manufacturer with the bow tie will know how to generously reward the two teams that helped him win the crown... NASCAR has thus changed in recent years, becoming a battle between manufacturers, more than between teams. If we had already seen this phenomenon on Superspeedways, where the three manufacturers ask their teams to work together, it is a new step that was taken this Sunday, where it is no longer several teams of three or four drivers who compete, but three manufacturers and many drivers. Wallace would never have gone so far as to voluntarily lose a lap to help another team a few years ago, without an express request from Toyota.

Losing points to three teams that did not qualify for the playoffs, how is this a deterrent for them? With almost nothing left to play for in their season, their actions simply benefited their manufacturers, without a real penalty. If the governing bodies wanted to strike a major blow, should they not have eliminated Byron and Bell from the final, and potentially only keep the three winners of the three rounds contested in the "Round of 8"? NASCAR did not hesitate to add Jeff Gordon to the Chase field (the ancestor of the playoffs) in 2013, the NASCAR legend having been harmed by the actions of Michael Waltrip Racing, which had manipulated the Richmond race in order to allow Martin Truex Jr. to qualify. The latter was eliminated from the Chase and was not able to fight for the title.

With the championship already embroiled in a legal dispute with 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports over franchises, it would have been wise to bang the table harder to prevent manufacturers from repeating this type of situation in the future. After inventing a "100%" rule, requiring each driver to give their all on every lap of every race, NASCAR could have found other solutions to restore some justice, which it clearly felt had been violated, since it penalized the three cars in question...

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