Pagenaud to miss Mid-Ohio qualifying after huge practice crash

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emailBy Mark Glendenning | July 1, 2023 11:38 AM ET

Simon Pagenaud will sit out qualifying for this weekend’s NTT IndyCar Series race at Mid-Ohio following his huge practice crash on Saturday morning.
"Yeah, I took time to do a practice crash, just in case I had to do a real crash during the race."
The one I was practicing was a "series" of barrel rolls. Those are always exciting. There is no way to judge the exact number of barrel rolls until it's over,
and sometimes you end up dead, which is a real bummer.
You also have those spectators holding up the numbered signs like they do at the Olympics.

As you roll and also bounce up and down, while the wheels and anything sticking out is tearing off,
sometimes you tear off something that you will need for the race, itself. That was today's case.

Once the wheels and suspension are missing, it looks a lot cleaner. But with it having no wheels,...sighhhh....
It won't race tomorrow.

The car qualified really far back. It might have done better if it had rolled and bounced in a straight line, but it was going off to the side
slightly and that counted against me. I prefer to land facing the stands, but not IN the stands. That way I can step out of the pile of remains
and walk straight to the fence to sign autographs while the crowd claps and cheers.

I made sure that no one was going to use that POS car real soon.

The 2016 series champion and 2019 Indianapolis 500 winner suffered a suspected brake failure at the end of the back straight,
pitching the No. 60 Meyer Shank Honda into a series of high-velocity barrel-rolls through the gravel before finally coming to rest against the tire barriers.

Saying that there was a "suspected" brake failure proves that liberalspeak is entering every part of our culture.
That is like when a Black Lives Matter supporter seeking to "raise awareness" of what the Liberal whacko's unfair cause of the day is,
machine guns a little old lady 80 times with a midway reload, in front of a camera and 150 witnesses, and the leftist Liberal news guy
calls it an "alleged" or "suspected" shooting ..........and then blames President Trump, Christians, Republicans and white folks in general
and the NRA and says we have to disarm law abiding citizens of the means to protect their families. without infringing on the BLM whackos freedom of speech.

Maybe freedom of speech should extend to calling the media, a bunch of worthless POS's

 

Pagenaud walks away from huge shunt as Power tops IndyCar FP2 at Mid-Ohio

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emailBy David Malsher-Lopez | July 1, 2023 11:02 AM ET

Will Power led the field in second practice for Sunday’s Honda Indy 200, but the talking point of the session was Simon Pagenaud’s escape from a shunt that involved multiple high-speed barrel rolls.

Eight minutes into the session, Peacock’s cameras captured Pagenaud’s Meyer Shank Racing-Honda broadside but still at high velocity at the end of the back straight. The car launched over the strip of grass, before the right-side wheels dug into the sandtrap, and the car went through six-and-a-half rolls before the belly of the car hit the tire wall with ending up coming to rest on its rollhoop.he 2016 champion and 2019 Indy 500 winner radioed to the MSR team to inform them he was OK and that he had suffered brake failure. The AMR Safety Team stabilized the car on its side while Pagenaud slithered out, paused a couple of times to capture his breath, and then walked to the safety vehicle unassisted.

He later told NBC’s Dillon Welch, “It was a hell of a ride, for sure. Something broke and I couldn’t slow down. I tried to make the corner anyway. I know that gravel is deadly. Michael Andretti’s done it, so I’m joining another legend, so that’s cool! But I was just trying to bail out.

“It’s downhill, which is nuts: the car took off, it hit the gravel and I just rolled. I’m just glad I didn’t go over the tire wall. I’m so glad we have the aeroscreen. I’m really thankful for IndyCar and the aeroscreen safety.”

Asked if that was as bad a ride as he’s suffered in his career, Pagenaud said: “Definitely the wildest. Funnily enough, my first crash was exactly the same circumstance. So… yeah, interesting.”

Regarding his return to action for qualifying at 2.45pm ET, Pagenaud declared he was “ready, it’s not a problem” but admitted it would be the doctor’s decision.

• Twitter video was here but won't translate to this page.........

When the session restarted, the lap times remained as incredibly tight as in first practice, with Colton Herta of Andretti Autosport-Honda, Friday pacesetter Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren-Chevrolet and Scott Dixon covered by just half a tenth with 15 minutes to go.

Team Penske-Chevrolet’s Will Power then jumped to the top with his 14th lap, and clipped 0.28sec from that time on his 15th. That kept him a quarter-second clear of runaway points leader and 2021 champion Alex Palou of Ganassi, who also jumped up the order to second.

Santino Ferrucci brought out the second red flag with an off at Turn 12, although the AJ Foyt Racing machine looked fairly undamaged. That wasn’t the end of his drama as he spun over the hill at Turn 9, but managed to continue without stalling.

Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist also had a spin toward the end of the session, while Scott McLaughlin of Penske was a late improver, jumping to sixth behind compatriot Dixon.

Graham Rahal, Christian Lundgaard and Jack Harvey confirmed the improved Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda form hinted at by Lundgaard’s pace at Road America two weeks ago and on Friday here at Mid-Ohio. The trio finished the session in seventh, 11th and 14th.

Another happy surprise was David Malukas, who slotted his Dale Coyne Racing-Honda into eighth, ahead of Kyle Kirkwood and Rosenqvist.