INDYCAR Driver Nolan Siegel Suffers Mild Concussion, Out For Sunday’s Race At Iowa

Bob Pockrass

FOX Motorsports Insider

NEWTON, Iowa — INDYCAR driver Nolan Siegel will miss the second race of the Iowa Speedway doubleheader weekend after suffering a mild concussion in a hard crash in the opener on Saturday.

Siegel was not cleared by the INDYCAR medical staff to race Sunday morning. The Arrow McLaren No. 6 car will not compete in the 275-lap event which airs at 1 p.m. ET on FOX.

“He has a mild concussion. … [The doctors] looked at the accelerometer and all the data that they have and determined that he had a mild one, but they wanted him to recheck him [today],” Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan said. 

After he exited the medical center on Saturday, Siegel indicated he planned to race today despite the hard hit, which caused the race to be stopped briefly so the wall could be repaired.

“Yeah, it’s a big hit, but yeah, I’m fine, I think,” Siegel said Saturday. “We’ll be good. I’m excited for tomorrow, starting fifth. It will be a good day. It was a good day today [until the wreck].”

But after being re-evaluated Sunday morning, Siegel was not cleared. No one else changes position as there will be no car on the inside of Row 3 for the start of the race.

“There’s no place I’d rather be than out there driving today, especially from P5, one of my best starting positions of the season,” Siegel said in a statement. “I know I’m in good hands with the INDYCAR medical team and thank them for the great care they provide us drivers.

“Most of all, I feel for [my] crew. They gave me a rocket this weekend and put in a ton of work last night with hopes we’d be racing today. They deserve to be out there fighting for podium, and we’ll be back soon to do just that.”

Siegel said Saturday that the handling of his car changed late in the race. 

“It was a little weird from the time I left pit lane and hadn’t had a lot of oversteer up until then,” Siegel said. “And then I just lost it in the middle of [turns] 3 and 4. I was pushing hard. … There’s not much more to it.”

While Siegel was hopeful to race today, Kanaan said he was told after the race Saturday by INDYCAR that it needed to know that night if there would be a substitute driver because it would need to schedule a short practice session for that driver.

Kanaan was still thinking at that time Siegel would be cleared.

“In my opinion, I really didn’t believe that Nolan was not going to get cleared,” Kanaan said.

Kanaan had hoped that INDYCAR might bend the rule and allow him (Kanaan) to start-and-park the car for the five entrant points, which could be pivotal as the No. 6 car is on the bubble to be top-22 in owner points and the bonus money that goes with it. 

INDYCAR wouldn’t allow that, and Siegel, who is 21st in the series standings, will earn three points instead of the typical five for a 27th-place finish since he is not starting the race. 

Siegel will work with doctors this week and be re-evaluated Thursday to determine his status for next week’s race at Toronto. Kanaan will decide on a substitute/standby driver likely early this week since that driver will have to travel to Toronto – and that Kanaan himself won’t be an option.

“I’ve been there, I know how Nolan feels not racing today,” Kanaan said in a statement earlier Sunday. “It’s the worst feeling in the world. The most important thing, though, is that he’s fit to race, and unfortunately that’s not the case today.

“It was a tough decision to park the car, but we’ve been through this before. We just found out this morning he’s not cleared, and we decided the best thing for the team is to not rush into switching drivers this weekend. It’s too much of a shuffle and unnecessary stress when we’re right back to racing in Toronto in a week.”

Last year, the team used a couple of substitute drivers when David Malukas broke his wrist mountain biking prior to the season. One of those substitute drivers, Theo Pourchaire, could be an option to be the substitute/standby driver for Siegel.

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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