Nolan Siegel reflects on 'unnecessary' IndyCar wreck with Alex Palou
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ELKHART LAKE – When Nolan Siegel left World Wide Technology Raceway he thought he had a good idea of what caused the wreck that put him out of the Bomarito Auto Group 500 but wanted to do a deeper dive.
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The third-year NTT IndyCar Series driver had the opportunity to watch replays of the contact from championship leader Alex Palou in the day and a half that followed and came to essentially the same conclusion.
“I'm sure he didn't do anything intentionally. I think it was just unnecessary, to be perfectly honest,” Siegel said June 9 during a test at Road America ahead of the XPEL Grand Prix on June 21.
“We weren't racing each other. I was going to just fall in behind him. He went straight to, like, lane 2 ½ when he knows that I can't run higher than him. He kind of put me in a position where I was going to end up in the wall either way for really no gain. Not entirely sure why that decision was made.”
Siegel said he hadn’t had a chance to talk yet with the Palou, the four-time and defending series champion, who was not among the 13 drivers at the test.
More than anything, Siegel said, he was frustrated.
“On my side, I think I probably could have lifted and then bailed and filed in behind him, but you do that enough times and you just get freight-trained,” Siegel said. “You can't be doing that in any car, especially on a short oval. Get on the back foot, you just get destroyed.
“So frustrating, and yeah, just a little unnecessary. But again, I'm sure it wasn't intentional.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Nolan Siegel discusses wreck with Alex Palou in WWTR IndyCar race