Monday afternoon held a short practice session for the NTT IndyCar Series, with drivers getting a chance to return to race trim after a weekend of qualifying.
The session turned damaging, however, as a multi-car crash interrupted the action 30 minutes into the run.
Alexander Rossi appeared to simply lose the rear of his car as he sped through Turn 2, spinning across the track.
The spun three quarters of the way around and impacted the outside SAFER barrier hard. His car lifted off the ground, but did not turn over before settling back on the track.
Pato O’Ward also spun as he was attempting to avoid the spinning ECR car, and ended up crashing into Rossi as the two were still travelling quickly down the road.
Romain Grosjean also spun while trying to avoid, but he was at the exit of the corner by that point and did not suffer nearly as much damage.
O’Ward and Grosjean were quickly released from the care center, but Rossi was kept longer at the medical center for further evaluation.
From IndyCar Medical Director Dr. Julia Vaizer: “Alexander Rossi is awake and alert, in good spirits and still undergoing evaluation in the IU Heath Emergency Medical Center.”
It was announced 90 minutes after the crash that he would be taken to a local hospital for additional evaluation.
High speeds
Aside from the incident, there was only 34 minutes of green flag time run before storms moved into the area and canceled the remainder of the session that was originally supposed to run for two hours.
Drivers were running their race setups and prioritized running in groups in order to get a feel for dirty air again.
Josef Newgarden was quickest at 226.198 MPH, with Takuma Sato and Dennis Hauger clocking the second and third best times respectively.
Ryan Hunter-Reay and Marcus Ericsson were fourth and fifth quick, with each rebounding impressively from their qualifying pace.
All drivers turned at least 19 laps, however, and Sting Ray Robb was the busiest with 47 laps completed.
The small amount of time gave the entire field at least some time to sample their cars in race trim.
Unfortunately, the clean record that had been in place for the entire Month of May was ended and multiple teams will spend the evening evaluating if a backup chassis is needed.
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