Wednesday IMS Practice Report #1 (Update)

UPDATE ROGER PENSKE (Owner, Team Penske): (On driver Helio Castroneves' crash): "It looks like the car got backwards, air got underneath it and the car flipped. He's just resting in there. Not an issue. No broken bones. Nothing. He's alert. In fact, I talked to him right after he hit the ground. He'll be fine." (About car getting airborne): "We're playing with new areas from the aerodynamic standpoint, and of course, going backwards at that speed, you don't know what kind of lift it had. But obviously, it got airborne which we were surprised (about). We'll take a good look at it." (Will you repair the car?): "We wouldn't run that car. We'll run a backup car."(About the penalty given to Castroneves): "We were surprised that we got a penalty, quite honestly. We weren't notified of anything during the race that was going to be a review. We've got 48 hours to review it and see what we're going to do."

05/13/15

Scary crash today for Helio Castroneves. Thankfully, the three-time Indianapolis 500 winner was ok.

Action has resumed after the second incident of the month here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Helio Castroneves, working on only his second lap of the day, had the rear end of the car snap around in turn 3, causing a classic 180 spin into the wall. The crash was punctuated when his car left the ground as it slid down the short chute backwards. The rear lifted off of the ground, and deposited Helio more-or-less gently onto the track head-first. Helio got out of the car with a little help, and IMS announced that he was uninjured in the shunt.

The previous incident, of course, happened yesterday when a fuel leak ignited into quite a bit of fire in Simona de Silvestro's car. The car was taken back to the Andretti team shop where it will be rebuilt for this weekend's qualification attempt. Simona was uninjured in the incident, although wondering about the number of fires she's experienced in IndyCar. "It's definitely unfortunate because the car is pretty burnt down, and it's really frustrating that it seems like fire follows me," she remarked.

Another fire for Simona de Silvestro

"Maybe this time is 'third time's the charm,' and hopefully the team can get the car back together as quickly as possible. Until now, everything was working fine, and it’s just annoying because it’s a pretty big setback for us, but I have four great teammates and that will make it easier for us to continue moving forward."

– Also deemed "Not appearing in this practice" will be the car of Buddy Lazier. The Lazier team is busily putting the car together in Gasoline Alley, complete with new body panels, and is targeting practice for tomorrow to sort things out. All of the rest of the teams have been out this month.

– We have 34 cars here at IMS. There are a total of 34 motors between the two manufacturers, so there won't be a 35th car. Which means that we will have a Bump Day with Bumping. Probably.

Could James Davison's funding for the Indy 500 be on tenuous ground?

Probably? Rumor has it that Dale Coyne is still working out some deals to fully fund his #19 car, which is currently piloted by James Davison. Since it costs over $1 million to run a one-off at Indy (and that's if you have the car and don't hit anything really solid) you can bet that there are lots of people getting phone calls to fully fund this effort. Should another deal happen that fully funds the car with a different driver, there would be a driver change. And one wonders if Dale would risk the team betting that the funding will appear before the 500 if they make it into the field.

– Derek Walker was amused when I suggested that the aero packages between Honda and Chevy were fairly close together. Something about "What, you get that from 2 days of practice?!?!" But so far I've yet to hear the angst from the Honda teams that we had last week with the road/street aero packages. Far more concerning right now was the spate of Honda engine failures yesterday. James Jakes confirmed all of this in a brief conversation — that the car felt good to him until his engine expired yesterday.

– Far more likely to make a difference is the fact that Chevy has the Penske, Ganassi and CFH teams. All three are normally fast at Indy, and one would expect them to be fast even if the motor makes were reversed.

— Tim Wohlford, reporting from IMS