Scott McLaughlin crashed his Team Penske car in Sunday afternoon practice and ruined his chance to repeat last year’s Indianapolis 500 pole-winning run.
McLaughlin qualified Saturday inside the top 12 and was eligible to run for the pole later Sunday. But he spun at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and immediately lifted both hands to his helmet as he braced for impact with the Turn 2 wall.
The New Zealanders’ car was destroyed and Team Penske said they’d slot him at 12th and not even attempt a qualifying run Sunday. The car the team was working on for McLaughlin is Penske’s backup speedway car and had been earmarked for teammate Josef Newgarden to use in next week’s pit crew competition.
McLaughlin, who last year led a Penske sweep of the front row in qualifying, was clearly deflated after he was released from the medical center.
“I’m OK, I’m just really, really, really, really, really sorry for everyone at Team Penske,” McLaughlin said. “It was talking to me and I sort of felt it, and I probably should have backed out, but you’re trying to complete a run to see what it feels like and was it worth the risk? Probably wasn’t. I’m incredibly sad.”
He said he felt fortunate the car did not go airborne into the catchfence, but the crash did cause damage to the track surface that IMS workers were fixing during a stoppage created by his wreck.
“They can build a new car for me, but I’m just really gutted more than anything,” McLaughlin said. “It’s hard to take, like you wish it was for something, but it was for nothing, right? In practice.”
McLaughlin was also rattled to see his wife crying after his crash out of concern for him.
“They’re nervous about me,” he said. “I wanted to get out of the car straight away just so she knew I was OK.”
There have been three hard crashes in the last two days at Indianapolis. Marcus Armstrong and Colton Herta both crashed Saturday and Armstrong has to qualify Sunday for the field of 33 using a road and street course backup car. Herta qualified inside the top 30 to lock himself into the field once his car was ready for qualifying.
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