TORONTO – A serious-looking accident has occurred at the Verizon IndyCar Series’ second race of the Honda Indy Toronto weekend (LIVE on NBCSN/NBC Sports Live Extra) just past the 12-lap mark, and put the 65-lap race under its second full course caution of the race.
But the incident involving Mikhail Aleshin and Juan Pablo Montoya primarily, plus hometown hero James Hinchcliffe and two other cars, fortunately has seen Aleshin emerge unscathed. See the NBCSN clip above, and a separate YouTube clip here.
Steady rain began to fall just after the race started and intensified at the 90-degree right-handed Turn 8. The Turn 8 patch was slick and triggered a series of offs.
Montoya nosed into the tire barriers, Hinchcliffe lost control of his car and collected Montoya’s right rear wheel guard with his left side. Race one winner Sebastien Bourdais and Charlie Kimball ran into the runoff area to avoid the incident.
But Aleshin locked up and went straight into Montoya’s car, and his No. 7 SMP Racing Honda was wedged directly underneath Montoya’s No. 2 Hawk Performance Chevrolet.
It was a wreck reminiscent of one in a CART race in 1998 at Road America, when Alex Barron ran on top of Bryan Herta’s stopped car. Barron’s car needed to be craned away and lifted off Herta’s.
This was the situation here; Montoya’s car was lifted off Aleshin’s while the INDYCAR Holmatro Safety Team tended to Aleshin. Aleshin, the Russian rookie, walked out under his own power, and returned to the pit lane.
“I realized that only when I started to brake. I smacked the other car. I ended up under the car,” Aleshin told NBCSN’s Marty Snider. “It was not such a great feeling at all. I’m sorry for the spectators and everyone who supports me. The most important thing is everything is fine.
“As you can see, there are some marks here in the helmet,” he added. “I was sitting under the car, it was getting so much closer. I could not breathe at all. I was just sitting under the car. Impossible to breathe, and not nice feeling at all.”
Aleshin tweeted his helmet pic after the incident.
That was close)///Ну вы поняли) pic.twitter.com/dMBlyUJom9
— Mikhail Aleshin (@mikhailaleshin) July 20, 2014
Josef Newgarden led the race at the Lap 19 restart, on a wet/dry track.
