The 28-year-old Canadian had run 65 laps, and there were 30mins left to go in the two-hour practice session – the last before Friday’s Carb Day practice – when the incident occurred.
Romain Grosjean’s Andretti Autosport-Honda was running relatively slowly down the front straight, close to the pit wall, allowing cars to pass on his outside as he attempted to get in the tow of a pack of cars.
However, as he arrived at Turn 1, Kellett appeared to be in two minds about whether to make the pass on the outside or not. On a higher than usual line, his car snapped out of control, he jammed on the brakes but struck the SAFER barrier with considerable force.
A hard hit for Dalton Kellett in #Indy500 practice.
— IndyCar on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) May 23, 2022
His crash is the first major one throughout all of the practice and qualifying sessions so far. pic.twitter.com/Cfuw0rPCoo
The Foyt machine slid along the wall down to Turn 2, but stayed the right way up, and Kellett was able to exit the cockpit unassisted. Andretti teammates Colton Herta and Alexander Rossi suddenly backed off but managed to avoid any incident of their own.
The AMR Safety Team was able to clear the car and wreck within eight minutes and the session resumed.
Kellett has now been checked and released from the infield Medical Care Center.
Apart from one incident of wall-slapping each from Takuma Sato and Jimmie Johnson, this Month of May at the Speedway has been remarkably incident-free on track.
