I should probably be madder at Agustín Canapino than I am.

Pato O’Ward is one of my favourite drivers in IndyCar, which puts my allegiances at least somewhat in the Arrow McLaren camp.

It seems all anybody’s been able to talk about for the past week and change is the incident in Detroit between O’Ward’s teammate, Théo Pourchaire, and Canapino.

One collision between the two, which barely registered in the moment amidst the sea of bump-and-runs in that race, subsequently spiralled into a mess of online fan wars, death threats, and poorly-handled PR that led to McLaren breaking off their alliance with Canapino’s team, Juncos Hollinger Racing.

As Juncos scrambled to strip the papaya orange off their cars, Canapino stepped back for mental health reasons, and Nolan Siegel made an emergency step up from Indy NXT to pilot the #78 at Road America.

I can’t knock McLaren for doing what they did. They have a responsibility to protect their drivers from online abuse, just as Canapino and his camp have a responsibility to firmly reign in anyone spewing filth in his name.

But when Canapino confirmed he would be back at Laguna Seca for the Grand Prix of Monterey, and subsequently the rest of the 2024 IndyCar Series, some of the responses I saw were bizarrely out of proportion.

Apparently, some people had convinced themselves that, not only was he already gone, but that this all proved he never deserved to be here in the first place, which is a logic I can’t follow.

First of all, Nolan Siegel taking over the #78 full-time was never a realistic option. Don’t get me wrong, the kid’s incredibly poised for a teenager, but Dale Coyne Racing staked their claim on him for 2024 well in advance.

He’s already signed to drive for Coyne in Toronto next month, and that’s before considering what it would take to convince HMD Motorsports to let go of a driver who helped them secure the Indy NXT Teams’ Championship last year.

He will be crucial to defending that crown this year, especially when Andretti’s NXT branch is currently breathing down HMD’s necks with three straight race wins.

I also have to ask, if not Siegel, then who did people actually think Juncos would go get as Canapino’s replacement from Laguna Seca to the end of the season?

David Malukas got taken off the table as this was all happening, earning a well-deserved seat at Meyer Shank. The ever-popular Katherine Legge won’t be available until July.

As lucrative as Lindsay Brewer will be whenever she moves up to the top flight, her results in Indy NXT tell me that promoting her now would be a career-killer.

However you feel about him, Canapino genuinely is the best option available for Juncos right now.

He’s an objectively talented driver who dominated Turismo Carretera the way Scott McLaughlin dominated V8 Supercars, and McLaughlin has clearly taken to open-wheel racing faster.

But Canapino has proved more competent and capable of staying out of trouble in his second year in this discipline than some drivers who spent years grinding their way up the Road to Indy and learning these circuits better than he ever had the chance to, only to become Captain Crash the second they reach the top flight.

At the very least, I’d rather see Canapino around than Santino Ferrucci, who hasn’t won a race anywhere since he was 16 years old and only gets TV time outside the Indy 500 because he hit someone mid-race or tried to run them off the road in practice, but whose spot as A.J. Foyt’s lead driver appears secure in spite of that.

Frankly, I think Canapino’s detractors only feel emboldened to declare they want him out because the temperature is up and the incident is fresh in our minds.

Once we give this time to settle, and all drivers involved get the chance to race normally for a while, it’ll be clearer that he deserves the chance to at least see out the season.

So when Canapino returns at Laguna Seca, I hope he finds his best result yet in IndyCar. I hope he gets a fair shot at earning another contract whenever his current one expires.

I hope Pourchaire never has to deal with online harassment again, and if he ever finds himself battling with Canapino for a position again, it’s as clean and exciting as two talented drivers going wheel-to-wheel can be.

But most of all, I hope any future flare-ups between drivers stay out of the fans’ hands and in the realm of competition, where the scores can be settled on track and add to our enjoyment of the sport.