After 2016 Indy winner Alexander Rossi spun on the warm-up lane, and four-time and defending Indy winner Helio Castroneves spun out of the warm-up lane and into the Turn 2 wall, Power’s incident was the third of the day and brought the test to a premature close.
Power completed a 360deg spin on the strip of grass that separates Turn 1 from pitlane exit. As he gathered up the #12 Team Penske-Chevrolet, its rear hung over the racing line at the apex of Turn 1 when Herta arrived on the scene at around 225mph. The Andretti Autosport-Honda driver moved up half a lane to avoid contact, but that put his car into a drift that became a spin. Herta’s car tagged the outside wall with its rear wing, and slid broadside with wheels locked down to the inside of Turn 2. A closely following Marcus Ericsson managed to avoid causing another serious impact.
Speaking to Marty Snider on Peacock’s streaming service, Power said: “Man, it just lit up. I didn’t have much lateral load – I was in second gear, full throttle but we have a very tall second gear. I had already done a [installation] lap so I had rear tire temp, I thought.
“Scared the absolute daylights out of me. You know the situation, when you come up on the track and there’s a whole pack coming at those speeds. I feel terrible for Colton that he crashed because I spun. But I had zero warning – zero! I told the engineer, ‘Look at the video, we’ve got to understand what happened there, because I don’t understand what happened.’ It’s just a bad situation. I want to know what I did wrong because I never want that to happen again. I don’t know if it’s something on the track because it felt like water. As soon as I finished spinning, I thought, ‘Man, there must be water there – something – because I’ve been out of that pitlane hundreds of times.”
Asked if the slowdown or warmup lanes at pit entry and pit exit respectively had felt slick before that, Power replied, “Well I’d been super-careful all day because Rossi was the first one to spin. So I have been taking it easy on the apron for that reason, and because it’s just testing. You don’t want to risk going quick on the apron and ending up on the track when other cars are at speed.
“It just surprised me, big time. Normally you’re ready for that stuff when you’ve had a whole career; you get some warning.
“One thing I noticed is that there is more of a bump now where you go over the road course, and I’m wondering if we just got a spike of boost [as the rear end went light] or if it was cold tires. But I’d already done a lap, and normally when I leave the pits even on cold, cold tires you go out faster than that, so yeah, it was a surprise to me. I said, ‘Man, we’ve got to understand this because I don’t want anyone else to have to go through this, or something happen to anyone else, or someone else gets hurt because of it.
“Yeah, I feel terrible for Colton to have to crash because of something that happened there by me.”
Power said IndyCar was right to call an end to the action for the day.
“Let’s really review the video and have a look at the track,” he said. “I’m sure the [IndyCar officials] have inspected it to make sure there’s not a weeper or something. Because I asked my guys, ‘Did I hit the grass, did I hit the grass on the inside?’ And they said, ‘No, no’. It just looked like it went like that with zero warning.
“Phwoar, man. Oh my God. When I spun and was going up the track, I thought, ‘This is it. This is going to be bad.’ And then I grabbed the rear and headed back in, but then I saw Colton crash, and I thought, ‘Ugh, now I’ve caused other people to have wrecks.’
Power said it brought to mind Alex Zanardi’s accident at Lausitzring in 2001 that cost the two-time champion his legs, when he spun exiting the pits at the German oval, went across the track broadside, and the cockpit area of his car was smashed apart by Alex Tagliani’s car which was running at speed.
“Scary, scary,” said Power. “It’s like my worst nightmare. It’s something you always think about as a driver because you’ve seen it. You saw what happened to Zanardi and it’s just something you’re aware of, and you’re cautious of during practice, and I just couldn’t believe it caught me out.”
While Power had potentially the biggest incident of the day, his former teammate Castroneves suffered the biggest impact with his striking of the Turn 2 wall with last year’s winning Meyer Shank Racing-Honda.
“Talking to other drivers, like Colton, he said it almost happened to him too but he saved it,” said the Brazilian veteran. “Very strange, not sure if it's because the temperature dropped just now.
"I wasn't pushing, I wasn't even trying. Honestly we were just trying stuff on the track to make sure the car felt good.
“It was very unusual. You saw me looking at the car, I was like 'I can't believe it! What happened?’ A driver has the knowledge, if you're trying to push, or do something different, but I'm not sure what happened."
Meyer Shank Racing confirmed to Trackside Online that the #06 would not be returning to action tomorrow, and that Castroneves was heading home.
