“You hope for the best” - A year of Indy 500 crashes
- Archie O’Reilly
- 2 minutes ago
- 9 min read
Of the 33 drivers lining up for the 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500, almost a quarter have suffered wall contact between April’s open test and the Month of May fortnight.
There has been a significant uptick in the number and size of pre-race incidents at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this year. And there is one big difference to recent years: the increased weight of the car with the hybrid system, making its Indy 500 debut.
“To go fast you have to be even more on the edge than normal,” FOX Sports analyst and former Indy 500 pole-sitter James Hinchcliffe observed. “The crashes that we’ve had have been fast cars: Ganassi, Penske, Andretti, McLaren. These are the big-name guys that are having these incidents because you have to really have the car on the edge to be quick.”
While there have been a pair of spins for Ed Carpenter Racing’s Christian Rasmussen in race trim, it was with the added power in qualifying configuration - where the cars have to be most on the edge - where the peril has been hiked up the most this year.
Both Arrow McLaren’s Kyle Larson and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Takuma Sato suffered crashes in testing during a rare pre-event qualifying boost session to allow the field to get used to the change in balance ahead qualifying the following month.
Three weeks later with the boost returning, Fast Friday was the messiest boost-up practice session in recent memory. Drivers aplenty were struggling with the balance and failing to knit together four-lap qualifying simulations. With that came further incidents for Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyffin Simpson and Larson again.
That set the precedent for qualifying weekend, with Meyer Shank Racing (MSR)’s Marcus Armstrong crashing heavily in the warm-up practice session and Andretti Global’s Colton Herta suffering an accident in qualifying. In the warm-up session ahead of the Fast 12 the day later, Team Penske’ Scott McLaughlin had a similarly heavy incident.
Before May had even started, Sato’s April accident necessitated a chassis change. His team did an exceptional job to do a year’s work in three weeks to build up a new car that Sato - carrying two cracked ribs - was able to achieve a second-place qualifying result with.
There have been four further back-up cars necessitated as a result of May’s accidents, with only Larson and Rasmussen suffering light enough contact to avoid damaging their chassis.
The crashes for Sato and Armstrong were both similar in their nature, coming at over 230 mph in Turn 1 as the cars slid up high and spun, making heavy contact with the rear-left corner before hooking the front left into the SAFER barrier.
Both cars carried enough momentum to come to rest near to Turn 2, with Armstrong suffering a particularly heavy secondary impact between the first two corners.
In the case of Armstrong, crashing in the morning pre-qualifying practice on Saturday, he was caught out by his balance on Lap 1 of a qualifying simulation. The wind was stronger and conditions cooler than in practice the day prior, with the MSR team over-ambitious with their step down on downforce and a possible top-five capable car destroyed.
More than anything, it showed the knife-edge that the cars are on with the added weight of the hybrid at the rear.
“It was a strange one really,” Armstrong described. “The first thing I noticed was the weight of the car. Typically when you have a slide, whether it’s on an oval or a road course or a street course, you always try and catch it and drive through it.
“But on this occasion, it felt like there was half a tonne on the rear wing. It was just so heavy at the rear, there was just no way I was going to catch it.”
While drivers’ opinions on the extent to which the cars’ balance has changed have varied, there is a widespread belief that the feel of the car is different in 2025.
“I do believe that with these hybrids now the balance window is considerably smaller,” Armstrong explained. “The margin for error is very small at the moment. To even get the balance dialled in, I feel like it’s a lot more difficult than last year.
“It can bite you pretty hard if you are too aggressive, but then if you’re not aggressive enough, it’s too far in the opposite direction. With this extra weight as well, the corners just seem tighter.
“When you put boost and you take off the downforce, it just seems like you’re driving a GT car at 400 kph. Very heavy and rearward weight distribution. It doesn’t feel good at that speed.”
Larson, like Armstrong competing in his second Indy 500, has a unique perspective given this is the only IndyCar event in which he has competed given he is a full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver. But compared to his first foray last year, where he felt comfortable throughout, it has been harder work to adapt to a shifting balance.
Larson’s first crash - in testing - was a result of an in-cockpit error after failing to make an adjustment into Turn 1, pancaking the wall and mercifully scrubbing to ensure the secondary impact was minor. His next incident on Fast Friday was a little more aggressive, spinning in Turn 3 but fortunately enduring a square impact largely absorbed by the nose.
“It’s been a little more challenging with a couple of smaller crashes that we’ve had and having to work on the balance of the car more than we did last year,” said Larson, who did not suffer any incidents in his debut Indy 500 campaign. “I feel like last year we didn’t really have to mess with a whole lot. I thought the balance was pretty comfortable.
“But it’s just taken a little bit more time to get to that comfortable spot this year.”
The cars have been made a little more unpredictable too. Rasmussen’s pair of spins came with little warning - the first attributed to 33-lap old tyres but the exact same nature of moment repeated on fresh rubber at Turn 3 again a matter of days later.
The two spins came in race running - in Thursday practice and again on Monday - and had little consequence; the first resulted in only a small crack of the rear wing and the second slightly heavier with minor suspension damage before slight rear contact with the inside wall.
“We put on that same setup [on Monday],” Rasmussen said. “Went out on new tyres and the same thing happened. It was out of the ordinary. The rear stepped out on the car in both instances out of nowhere with not really any sign of it wanting to do so.”
In boost configuration, Simpson was concerningly one of three drivers - along with Herta and McLaughlin - to find himself airborne, each coming in a different corner. The sophomore’s Friday accident came at Turn 4 - another case of a moment unable to be caught before the car spun.
Simpson’s rear-left tyre first made contact with the barrier before the front-left corner was hooked into the wall, lifting the car off the ground before heavily landing on its left sidepod and coming to rest right-way-up in the pit lane entrance. Simpson had felt some balance issues but also thought he was on top of the car’s handling before an unsaveable moment.
“It was just a tough situation,” Simpson said. “I could kind of feel it coming through Turn 3. It was a little bit sketchy but I didn’t think it was all that bad. Did some stuff with my tools, thought I could get through Turn 4 and then bail out of the run. It got a lot more sketchy in Turn 4.”
Crashing at Indianapolis is nigh on an inevitability for drivers - shown this fortnight with some of the very best almost helplessly caught out. For Simpson and Armstrong, it was their first taste of a crash at the Speedway and the biggest impact of their careers.
At speeds of over 230 mph, it is hard for mere mortals to comprehend the feeling. But racing drivers have to be unflappable. As soon as the impact is suffered, attention switches to the competitive consequences. The crash is an afterthought.
“It goes quick,” Armstrong recalled. “It doesn’t feel good. Then when you’re backwards, you hope for the best and brace for impact. The initial thought was just: ‘Am I all good?’
“Then it was: ‘Is this car going to be salvageable? No, it’s not. Okay.’ Then I just wanted to get back out there.”
Armstrong radioed immediately to confirm he was okay but emerged from the car on a stretcher after several minutes, though ensuring he gave a wave and thumbs up to the camera to indicate he was unharmed. He then had to undergo strict concussion tests before being cleared to return to the car after five hours.
By late Saturday, Armstrong’s back-up car had been prepared and he was back out on track in the final hour of the opening day of qualifying. He did not immediately secure his place in the field but successfully evaded bumping in Sunday’s Last Chance Qualifying.
“I’m definitely not thinking about [the crash] apart from every time I’m doing an interview and they show me the video and then ask me to walk them through the experience,” he joked. “But it’s kind of like riding a bike. You’ve got to get straight back on it.
“It’s not the first time in my life I’ve ever had a crash. It’s certainly the biggest but you just have to get straight back out there and push the limits and trust the car.”
The two most dramatic crashes of the month have been those of Herta and McLaughlin.
At Turn 1 of the opening lap of his qualifying run, Herta lost the car and spun left-front first into the barrier before slapping the wall with the left-rear tyre and lifting airborne, coming to rest inverted before contacting the barrier again cockpit-first.
It is credit to the integrity of the car and live-saving safety features, such as the aeroscreen and roll hoop, that Herta walked away unhurt.
The same applied to McLaughlin’s massive incident in the pre-Fast 12 session the following day as he lost the car out of Turn 2, similarly spinning and hitting left-side first - front then rear - before lifting off the ground. McLaughlin’s car thankfully did not end up upside down.
The initial landing ripped the left-rear corner - tyre and suspension - from the car in terrifying fashion, in itself launching into the air, as McLaughlin’s car bounced and dug into the tarmac with its right-rear tyre before coming to a rest.
McLaughlin was ruled out of the Fast 12 session due to car repairs but Herta rebounded from his Saturday crash to return later in that session. An unprecedented build-up job of the back-up chassis in only four hours - having destroyed all bar the engine on his primary car - allowed Herta to run again and qualify 29th on his first and only qualifying run post-crash.
The effort was heroic from all involved. But Herta, such was his frustration at the impact of his crash on a possible pole-contending car, would not take any credit himself.
His own heroic rebound from the crash was beyond even an afterthought in his mind. Such is the mentality of these drivers to be able to put their lives on the line every time they go out on track, it is hardly a challenge getting back in the car.
“This place doesn’t scare me,” Herta insisted. “I don’t have a problem hitting the wall here and having big ones. It doesn’t feel good and it sucks but it doesn’t scare me when I get back in the race car.”
Herta believes drivers simply could not do what they do and be successful if fear was a big factor.
“No one would be able to do their job or do their job well enough to keep a seat in this series if you’re afraid of driving the car,” he said. “There are scary moments and maybe you’re a little bit more nervous to get into the car after a crash.
“But once you get going, all that fear evaporates, or that nervousness, at least for me. I feel like if I was scared in any sort of way, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I wouldn’t be able to stay flat around here, even on heavier downforce.
“It does test you at times and maybe you are a little nervous at times to get inside the car. But once you get in, you get into that mindset of like: ‘I want to be the best here and I want to be the fastest. I want to beat everybody.’ You forget about the past.”
Especially after an accident, a lot of getting back behind the saddle is a culture of trust surrounding the team game of motorsport.
For Herta to go flat-out for four laps after a four-hour build of a spare car and believe it would stick took immense faith in his No.26 squad.
“I’ve got a lot of trust in my guys to do the right things so I’m safe in the cockpit,” he explained. “When you have trust in everybody putting the car together to do the right thing, it’s really not too much of a worry.”
The same applied for 20-year-old Simpson, who had Saturday’s practice session to get his eye in but was able to qualify 15th only one day after his crash. It was a gutsy run.
“I trust those guys with my life,” Simpson said. “So I decided to make sure that I got up to speed as quick as I could and did my job.”
