Will Power set the fastest time in Saturday’s practice session for the Honda Indy 200, but Simon Pagenaud was the story of the session in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda.
The 2016 Mid-Ohio winner apparently lost his brakes on his way to Turn 4. The Frenchman violently flipped over several times in the gravel trap outside of the corner.
“I had no brakes, pedal was to the floor,” Pagenaud said.
“So I had no deceleration whatsoever. And the section of the track, that’s the worst – well, I wouldn’t want to do it in The Keyhole either, but that’s definitely 20 years, I think it was 20 years ago, maybe 30 for Michael [Andretti]. Yeah, I’m joining a legend, which is cool, not for the right reason.”
Pagenaud was referring to Michael Andretti’s flip heading to the same corner in the 1998 CART race at Mid-Ohio.
After spending a few moments trapped in the car sitting on its side, the IndyCar safety team pushed the car enough to allow the 2019 Indianapolis 500 winner to emerge from the wreckage.
Pagenaud was seen and released from the IndyCar medical team but has not been cleared to drive today.
After his medical evaluation, he was critical of the runoff area at Mid-Ohio.
Turn 4 goes to the right after a long straightaway. The runoff after the corner drops off of the edge of the pavement, leading to a situation where the pavement becomes a ramp for a car going off track, especially one with no brakes.
“I think they need to learn,” Pagenaud said.
“You should never have, that’s my opinion, but honestly it should be everybody’s opinion, I don’t care, but you should never have a drop off after the racetrack because what’s going to happen at high speed, the car is going to take off and that’s what happened.
“And when I land, I land in the gravel, which ditched the car and send it into a roll. So it’s inevitable when you’re going to crash there, that is going to be a huge one.
“So I could have gone straight, but I would’ve taken off as well. And who knows what could happen. I could have missed the, the wall and go further.
“So my choice was to try to make the corner because I knew that was the worst place on the schedule to actually go off. So yeah, that definitely needs to be a big change here. And I just don’t know why it’s not changing.”
After the red flag for Pagenaud’s accident, practice resumed and had only one more interruption with a small impact for Santino Ferrucci.
Power’s fastest lap was 1:06.4905s. Alex Palou was second fastest ahead of Colton Herta, Pato O’Ward and Scott Dixon. Scott McLaughlin was sixth fastest and Marcus Armstrong was 15th fastest.
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