Chip Ganassi Racing rookie Felix Rosenqvist endured a hard crash with an hour remaining in Indianapolis 500 practice Wednesday afternoon at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Rosenqvist had the wheels of his Dallara-Honda below the white line on the exit of Turn 2 when his No. 10 car snapped loose at 5:02 p.m., completing a full spin before making a right-rear impact with the SAFER barrier. The car then went across the track and made a heavy nose-first collision into the inside tire barrier.
Rosenqvist climbed out of his cockpit after the crash, which happened directly in front of a small pack of cars. Defending Indy 500 winner Will Power dove low and narrowly missed Rosenqvist’s car, which slid across the track in front of Jack Harvey without making contact (you can watch the video by clicking here or above).
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“I’m good,” Rosenqvist told Dillon Welch on NBC Sports Gold after exiting the IMS care center. “I was behind Colton (Herta), just trying to run the car in traffic and just felt a very sudden change, and it went very lose very fast, and I couldn’t react to it.”
After watching a replay, Rosenqvist said he might have been too low on the track.
“My team built a really good car, a really safe car,” he said. “I have to analyze what happened there. I’m not sure if I was down on the curb.”
Power said he was lucky to avoid an impact because he couldn’t see through the smoke left by Rosenqvist’s spin.
“Oh my God,” Power told Welch while watching the replay on the NBC Sports Gold broadcast. “That’s not good to see. Glad that we got through that OK and didn’t hit him and glad he’s OK and got out.”
It was the second accident Wednesday at the Brickyard. A few hours earlier, Fernando Alonso became the first IndyCar driver to smack the wall while running the oval this month.
Rosenqvist started on pole position for last Saturday’s Indy Car Grand Prix and finished eighth. The Swede has yet to race on an oval in the IndyCar Series.