The Meyer Shank Racing driver dipped his left side tyres onto the apron through turn two lost control of the #66 car.
Malukas spun and narrowly avoided being hit by McLaren rookie Nolan Siegel but the same couldn’t be said for Agustin Canapino in the #78 who got sandwiched against the wall.
Romain Grosjean couldn’t avoid the ensuing melee and spun his #77 into the crashing pair ahead of him.
Grosjean’s car leapt into the air after contact with his teammate. All three cars suffered too much damage to continue and retired.
Behind them, Christian Lundgaard spun on his own in similar fashion to Malukas after he dropped his left side tyres onto the apron.
“It was a rookie mistake,” said Malukas.
“Just had to check up on the start and didn’t anticipate it well and ended up driving on the apron and lost the car.
“It was really dumb by me, so big sorry to Canapino. I just collected him. Nothing he could do there.
“I feel really bad for the team. We had a really good start coming into this qualifying we were really quick and going into thie race. That’s big on me.
“Thankfully, we can say there’s a race two coming up and try again tomorrow and try and make up for it tomorrow but I feel really, really bad – that was just dumb. That was really dumb.”
Andretti Global’s Colton Herta led the race under control of the safety car ahead of Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske) and Alex Palou (Chip Ganassi Racing).
TROUBLE on the opening lap!
Multiple cars are involved, bringing out the yellow flag.
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