Curt Cavin

curt.cavin@indystar.com

Several aspects of IndyCar's standing starts, like the one that spoiled last weekend's road race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, will need to be improved for the series to continue with them, the series' senior-most official said.

Derrick Walker, the president of IndyCar's competition and operations, listed several factors that contributed to Carlos Munoz and Mikhail Aleshin slamming into the back of Sebastian Saavedra's stalled car in Saturday's Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Following an extensive review of the event, Walker said no factor was more significant than another.

"We've got enough blame to go around," he said.

- The anti-stall system used by the series is "very inconsistent at best," Walker said. IndyCar has had at least one failure on each of the six standing starts it's attempted since the debut of them last year in Toronto.

- IndyCar should have given the teams more practice time, Walker said. "We missed it there," he said.

- The spacing of the cars was too close. IndyCar used the international governing body's recommendation of 55 feet, but Walker noted that the guideline is based on smaller Formula One cars. "We used 70 feet in Long Beach (last month)," he said. "We had enough room to do that here."

- IndyCar didn't mandate that each driver have his own spotter as is required on oval tracks. Munoz and Aleshin didn't have dedicated spotters.

IndyCar is scheduled to have two more standing starts this season: June 28 in Houston and July 19 in Toronto.

As for the controversial restart that saw Graham Rahal knocked into the front straightaway wall, Walker said "some people, mainly in the back" tried to jump the restart, which led to the unnecessary bunching. They were warned and there were no other such problems.