Conor Daly apologized to IndyCar safety team after absurd 'tail' incident at Road America

Juncos Hollinger Racing's Conor Daly had a weird moment during yesterday's XPEL Road America race. He had a tow rope attached to his #76 car while driving around the race track, following a misjudgment at Turn 5, due to which he went into the gravel trap on lap 22, and subsequently had to be pulled out by the safety team with a tow rope.

In line with this, Conor Daly took the time to apologize to the safety team for the error on his part. As Daly's car was pulled out of the gravel trap, he didn't realize that the tow rope was still attached to the back of his car.

As a consequence, he got going, leaving the safety team and the commentators perplexed as to how the car had almost 'developed a tail'. The 33-year-old wrote about the incident in an Instagram post and said:

"Really appreciate the @juncoshollinger crew’s hard work yesterday. I made a mistake going for a pass into T5. Struggled with the brakes all race long. Safety worker was in my blind spot with the aero screen so didn’t see his hand signals at all after I got dragged out of the gravel. I made sure to apologize to that group of incredible people as well. We will bounce back in Ohio!" Daly wrote.

Conor Daly ended the 55-lap XPEL Grand Prix at Road America in P22 after starting his outing from P21. He is currently in 19th place in the drivers' standings with 133 points.

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Conor Daly was 'hanging on for dear life' in the 2025 Indy 500

Conor Daly has been competing in America's highest class of open-wheel racing since 2013. His maiden outing in the sport came in the Indy 500. After he took part in last month's 109th Running of the event (May 25), he admitted that he was 'hanging on for dear life' in the 200-lap race.

Daly started his Indianapolis Motor Speedway outing from P13, and during the race, he was able to make up quite a few places. He ultimately ended his race for the Juncos Hollinger Racing team in P8.

With about 40 laps to go, Daly experienced an unprecedented tyre drop-off while running second behind Ryan Hunter-Reay. Following this, the driver requested the crew for a pitstop, fearing a crash due to his lack of grip, and after some hesitation, his team obliged. In a post-race interaction, he felt that a bit was left on the table in terms of the finishing position. Back then, he said the following via Crash:

"I don’t know if something broke. We got to definitely look into it, but the car was just evil the last two sets of tyres. I have no idea what happened. We didn’t even make really many changes, so it just completely fell off a cliff, and I was hanging on for dear life, like literally crashing every turn."

Conor Daly ended the 2024 IndyCar season in P26 in the drivers' standings. Taking into consideration that he is currently in P19 (as mentioned earlier), he will eye a top 10 or a top 15 finish in the ongoing 2025 campaign.

Edited by Riddhiman Sarkar