“Caution to the wind” - Armstrong rebounding from crash for Indy 500 Bump Day

Credit: James Black

For Marcus Armstrong, the opening day of qualifying for his second Indianapolis 500 started off in the worst possible fashion.

The morning pre-qualifying practice session traditionally has limited takers given the peril of a possible crash. But with the wind direction having changed drastically from Fast Friday, more drivers than usual opted to get a read on conditions on Saturday morning.

Armstrong was one of those who decided to put aside the jeopardy and evaluate how things had changed from the day prior. But as he headed into Turn 1 on the first lap of his qualifying simulation, there was a twitch with drastic consequences.

Even the smallest moment at over 230 mph at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is likely to have significant ramifications. And in a split second, Armstrong’s No.66 Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) machine turned around and spun heavily into the SAFER barrier.

There was no chance for Armstrong to save the moment, with a heavy rearwards hit with the wall before the car swung round with a big left-side impact. The car continued to slide before a sizeable secondary impact on the run to Turn 2 before coming to rest on the grass.

“I don’t know why I lost the car so suddenly,” Armstrong said. “You could argue a bunch of things. Ultimately we put a setup on the car that we thought was going to be reasonably conservative for the conditions. But ultimately that wasn’t the case.

“My references were based off of [Friday] with a different wind. This morning’s balance caught me by surprise massively.

“It was a lot colder. History normally says you can afford to take a decent step down on downforce. However, this morning wasn’t really the case. I do believe that with these hybrids [and the added weight], now the balance window is considerably smaller.” 

MSR felt they had a strong package after Fast Friday - enough to be in the Fast 12 in qualifying. The intention was to finish the morning session in a window with which they were happy to start qualifying.

“Ultimately that was probably a bit ambitious,” Armstrong admitted.

Credit: Karl Zemlin

After what was the biggest hit of his career - only his third season as an IndyCar driver and second competing on ovals - Armstrong took a little while to be helped from the cockpit after some attention from the AMR Safety Team.

It was a relief to eventually see him give a wave and thumbs up after precautionarily being lifted onto a stretcher and taken to the infield care centre in an ambulance.

“Initially I just hoped the car wasn’t completely written off, which was the case,” he explained. “Secondly, it was whether or not they would let me drive again because I had to do a bunch of tests - concussion tests and all of that.”

It took over 90 minutes for Armstrong to gain initial clearance to be released from the medical centre and return to the team. But it was not until nearly five hours after the incident that Armstrong was declared fit to return to the car.

“Physically, I’m okay,” Armstrong said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m a bit sore in the morning. To me, it felt like a bigger hit than what it looked on the TV. 

“But the AMR Safety Crew was on top of me in record time. I think that truck they have was going quicker than Álex Palou today. I’m pretty lucky they were there. I’m good as gold, ready to crack on.”

The decision was quickly taken for MSR to switch to their back-up car, which is a road course chassis as its intended purpose, and put it into superspeedway configuration.

It was a long, hard day of work after the early-morning crash. But all of the MSR crews, with aid of their technical partners at Chip Ganassi Racing too, pulled together to put together a car able to return on track by the end of the opening qualifying day.

“Massive credit to Meyer Shank Racing for putting our road course car together so quickly,” Armstrong said. “I don’t think anyone expects a crash like that to destroy a tub. We didn’t have the car built up at all. They pretty much put it together.”

Credit: Matt Fraver

Within the final 90 minutes of qualifying, the new No.66 was passing through technical inspection. And with 45 minutes remaining - on the same day of the biggest impact of Armstrong’s career - the car was on track attempting to qualify.

It was a conservative first run from Armstrong, running in the 225-226 mph range before his run was waved off for being far too slow to bump him into the field. 

“I was hoping that the wind wouldn’t get any worse,” Armstrong said. “Perhaps the track temp would come down and give me a bit of a hand. Tough conditions. We didn’t even have telemetry on the first runs. We don’t know where the COP (centre of pressure) or ride heights are or anything.”

Still somewhat blind balance wise, Armstrong went out again late on and gained over 3 mph to break into a much more competitive 229 mph range. The team ultimately aborted with Armstrong not tracking to make it into the top 30 but it was no doubt a confidence builder.

Regardless, the New Zealander is having to return for Last Chance Qualifying on Sunday to try and not be the one driver of the 34 attempting to qualify who fails to make the 33-driver Indy 500 field.

“I was a little bit lost on that warm-up lap when I just drove now and I’m also cognisant of how difficult it is to get these cars into the right window,” Armstrong said. “With all these things not being as the other car, we don’t know where we are in terms of a balance window. You don’t find out about it until you’re midway through the corner. 

“My plan was to just take it easy only the first lap just to see where the balance was, adjust from there with my tools. My weight jacker wasn’t actually working so I only had my bars. 

“Then hopefully for the second run we would have been able to modify the ride heights and all of that. But we didn’t have any data. We just sent it with the same car.”

Credit: Joe Skibinski

Armstrong has never been a driver shy of confidence. And despite the size of the impact he suffered, he was still willing to keep his foot pinned and do everything he could to make the field on Saturday - even if in vain on the day.

“My mindset was if the car is good enough to do it, I’m not going to be the reason we’re not going to get through today,” he said. “I threw caution to the wind. Just went flat - hopefully the balance was there. It was. Ultimately wasn’t quick enough. We’ll come back.”

Despite all of the teething problems, ranging from a malfunctioning weight jacker to faulty telemetry, Armstrong is positive about the position in which he heads into Bump Day - one of the highest-pressure situations in all of motorsport.

His teammate Felix Rosenqvist has made the Fast 12 so the MSR team has clear pace if they can fine-tune Armstrong’s spare chassis.

“The car was definitely in a decent window,” Armstrong insisted. “It’s obviously hugely disappointing what happened this morning. We had a very fast car - Felix demonstrated that. Him and I were pretty much the same.”