Andretti and Rahal stage war of words on crash

Contact between Marco Andretti and Graham Rahal in Long Beach sent Andretti's car sailing over Rahal's in an early race accident at the Izod IndyCar Series Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Andretti was behind Rahal when he ran into the back of him. Andretti's car briefly went airborne before he landed and spun hard into the wall.

“I'm lucky I didn't get upside down. I could have been killed," Andretti said.

Andretti was adamant that Rahal “chopped" him to prevent Andretti from making the pass. Rahal disagreed.

“What's Marco's last name?" Rahal asked. “I've said enough."

“By the rules, you're allowed to make one move. I made one move," Rahal said. “At the speed he hit me at, he wouldn't have made the corner. It broke my gearbox, that's how hard he hit me. If we had just run wheel to wheel, it would never, ever have been that bad. Even if I chopped him, he didn't give himself any margin for error if that's what he's going to say.

“He hit me in the dead center of his car to the dead center of my right rear wheel. Where he hit me, there was no way."

Andretti disagreed he wasn't going to make the corner, and still thought Rahal was at fault.

“I got chopped. I had made the move and then he just caught me off guard," Andretti said. “I couldn't react in time, I was already there. It was such a surprise–I was still accelerating while I was in the air." AutoWeek