The Department of Transportation has declined to punish any staffers over apparent mishandling of the General Motors ignition-switch recall, though Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx promises to continue an internal investigation.

As the backlash against GM begins to wane, legislators and safety advocates have increasingly turned their attention to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration’s actions, or lack thereof, that allowed the death tally to grow for a decade.

At least one staff member voiced concerns over several fatal crashes that appeared to be related to disabled airbags, however management decided against pursuing a formal inquiry.

“We and I are willing to check our own math here,” Foxx said during a Monday appearance, as quoted by The Detroit News. “I’ve asked our inspector general to go through and do an after-action on this GM situation to see if there is anything we didn’t do that we should have done. We will learn from that report, and until that time we have our team intact.”

GM fired more than a dozen employees that were deemed partially responsible for the debacle, though the recall delays were blamed on incompetence rather than a willful coverup. Critics have called for higher-level executives, particularly in the legal department, to be removed from their positions as the company attempts to reshape its corporate culture.

Foxx argues that GM is solely responsible for the fiasco, as the company never provided a “timely heads-up.”

Safety advocates have pointed out that the NHTSA’s responsibilities include spotting problems that manufacturers do not see or fail to report. Foxx has countered by claiming the agency staff were reviewing complaints, however the data did not point to a safety defect at the time.

“I don’t agree that NHTSA just took the answers for granted,” he said. “They were looking for data to suggest that there was a problem.”

DoT and NHTSA leadership will face their own round of House and Senate grilling after committees have completed their hearings focused on GM. The agencies have not announced a specific time-frame for completing their internal inquiry.

It’s finally happened – someone has raced a Tesla Model S sedan around Germany’s famed Nurburgring.

The stunt wasn’t a marketing ploy by Tesla Motors, but rather an earlier R&D exercise by Nissan GT-R tuner Iain Litchfield. Although Litchfield is best-known for modifying GT-Rs, he hopes to one day apply his go-fast knowledge to electric vehicle.

For the test lap, Litchfield handed over the keys to professional racing drive Robb Holland. Holland recounted his Nurburgring lap in the Model S on Jalopnik. A video of the lap was also posted.

The Model S scored poorly in Holland’s eyes for it 4,700 pound curb weight, lack of mechanical grip and numb steering, but that’s not to say the car was a total let down. Holland came away impressed that a new company like Tesla could develop such a competent car, especially when considering the technology behind the Model S didn’t really exist 10-years ago.

Moreover, the electrically-powered Model S was dead silent during its lap and even managed to keep pace with a Porsche 911 GT3 RS at one point.

The ride turned sour about 3 minutes in, however, with the Model S going into a reduced power mode. Holland surmised that an overheated battery was to blame.

Because of that snafu the Model S required about 10 minutes to get around the Green Hell, but Holland estimates that the car is capable of a sub-9 minute lap. That time is surely to drop even further once Litchfield finishes his tuning.