Saturday Indy 500 Qualifying: Horrific Crash Puts Herta Near Back of Grid
Colton Herta gets back on track after 230-mph disaster, secures spot in next-to-last row.
Marcus Armstrong takes jarring hit in Meyer Shank Racing entry in practice but returns for two aborted shots at qualifying.
Alex Palou's fastest performance overshadowed by wrecks, rebounds, last-ditch efforts.
Graham Rahal avoids Sunday bump drama, as four others not as lucky.
Veteran NTT IndyCar Series driver Colton Herta, one of the strongest choices once again to earn the Indianapolis 500 pole position, rebounded from a violent 230-mph accident Saturday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to claim a 10th-row berth in a back-up car.
"It's going to be probably impossible to get out [again] today. Just a terrible day for this to happen," Herta said after leaving the infield medical center. But his Andretti Global team did a Herculean job to prepare another No. 26 Gainbridge Honda. The downside of his extraordinary effort was that in claiming the 29th of 33 positions, he bumped teammate Marco Andretti.
During Sunday's nail-biting bump hour, Andretti will battle for one of the three remaining spots in the starting lineup with three others: Rinus Veekay, Marcus Armstrong, and Jacob Abel.
Armstrong's qualifying was rough and disappointing, but the Meyer Shank Racing driver also survived a disturbing early-Saturday accident. Together with his crew, Armstrong mounted a courageous, if unsuccessful, comeback, making two aborted qualifying attempts in a replacement No. 66 Sirius XM Honda cobbled together from his own car, his road/street-course car, and teammate Felix Rosenqvist's spare.
Herta's accident was the fourth in the past two days at Indianapolis and the second Saturday. Earlier in the day, Armstrong rode out a massive wreck and exited his car on his own but was taken by stretcher to the infield care center but later cleared to return to the cockpit.Those two accidents came on the heels of Kyffin Simpson's wallbanger that flipped his car over during Fast Friday practice. Simpson, of Chip Ganassi Racing, got airborne like Herta did. Simpson's No. 8 entry made hard left-side contact with the wall, then turned over in Turn 4 during practice, in an incident he called "weird" and said, "Everything about it was weird."
NASCAR champion Kyle Larson, also crashed during Fast Friday, for the second time this spring as he continues to focus on racing May 25 in both the 500 and the Cup Series' Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte.
Herta said he saw "kind of no real signs leading to" his crash, in which his car broke loose as he powered through the first turn of his first lap. It hit the outside wall, sailed into the air, landed upside down, slid through the short chute between Turns 1 and 2, and slammed into the wall there. It was especially frightening, because the top of the car and driver's compartment bore the brunt as it screeched along the barrier. The safety team turned the car right-side-up, and Herta walked to the ambulance.
After leaving the infield hospital, Herta said, "I'm fine. Luckily, these crashes look a lot scarier than they feel - not to say that that one felt good. We were super-happy with the car this morning." He said the car got "just loose. Couldn't even get Lap 1 done. It sucks, but I'm good. We'll keep going.'
Graham Rahal, whose emotional reaction to being bumped last season lingers in fans' minds, avoided Sunday's bump drama. He and is No. 15 United Rentals Honda held onto the No. 30 position – the final locked-in spot – as several drivers ran out the day's time clock.
Conor Daly took the last laps of Saturday, pushing to improve his time and break into the Top 12 who will be pole-eligible come Sunday's field-setting activity. Daly barely missed making the
'Deserving Dozen' and said his Juncos Hollinger team 'deserves to be in the fast 12. I made the mistake of trying to push too much. It was a long day – goodness gracious. I'm really happy for Graham making it. I know he had a stressful day.'
Battling Sunday for a chance to make the Fast Six shootout and a starting position in the first two rows on Race Day will be Alex Palou, Saturday's fastest, as well as Scott McLaughlin, Josef Newgarden, Pato O'Ward, Scott Dixon, Robert Shwartzman, David Malukas, Felix Rosenqvist, Takuma Sato, Will Power, Marcus Ericsson, and Christian Lundgaard.
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