Drivers play down Richmond carnage

The race saw an event-record nine caution periods for 102 of the 300 laps - the second-highest number of yellow laps in the championship's history.

But winner Tony Kanaan and runner-up Helio Castroneves both felt that the carnage was an inevitable consequence of the increased field racing hard on the tight 0.75-mile oval, and that it was not necessarily a cause for concern.

"This race is always going to be busy," said Kanaan. "You're always going to be mad at somebody or somebody is going to be mad at you, because you're always passing or trying to lap somebody. That's the way it is. What are you going to do?

"It's the nature of the track, and you put 26 cars in a little track on like this, it becomes exciting, but also it has a potential for a lot of drama in the race.

"And I think it's a pretty good thing to have, so we have all types of diversities when you go from a superspeedway to a small track and then go to just a little track like Iowa and have millions of passes, and then you come back here and have a totally different race. That definitely adds to the championship."

Castroneves agreed that the crashes occurred purely the narrow track limited the number of passing opportunities so drivers had to take every chance they could.

"The point is, it's tough to pass here," he said. "Everybody when they have an opportunity, they want to take chances as much as they can. If you see a small window, you're going for it. I was going for it because I knew what I was doing, but I was taking a lot of chances, as well."

He denied that the series officials need to take any action to prevent a repeat of the carnage.

"The series is really incredible here, and to keep everything clean and stuff like that, there's not much you can do here," said Castroneves. "They are not driving the car. We are the ones driving the car and sometimes we do put the helmet on and forget about everything they say."

Many of the drivers taken out in the accidents were also sanguine about their fate. AJ Foyt IV was hit by John Andretti early in the race, but was unwilling to apportion blame.

"I don't know exactly whose fault it was - whether I came down or whether he should've got his nose out of the way," said Foyt. "It's a tight racetrack, that sort of stuff happens."

However others were less forgiving, with Darren Manning describing the driving at restarts as "pathetic" after sustaining suspension damage in a multi-car tangle, and Ryan Hunter-Reay criticising Mario Moraes after a collision ended both their races.

"I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt until I saw the tape of the crash but now I don't know that I can do that," Hunter-Reay said.

"It's just short-track racing. We had a busy race out there tonight. I was holding my breath on every lap. We were just out there surviving and trying to get some points and we can't even get that done without something like this happening to us."

Justin Wilson avoided the drama to finish seventh, and admitted that his first Richmond race had been an eye-opening experience.

"What a crazy race," he said. "There was some really good driving and some really bad driving out there. I was just trying not to get caught out and stay out of trouble and bring the car home."