{"id":298243,"date":"2023-05-19T06:25:09","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T06:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=298243"},"modified":"2023-05-19T09:59:46","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T09:59:46","slug":"indy-500-rookie-blasted-for-unbelievable-near-miss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=298243","title":{"rendered":"Indy 500 rookie blasted for 'unbelievable' near miss"},"content":{"rendered":"

IndyCar Series<\/a> front-runner Pato O'Ward was left lost for words after Indianapolis 500<\/a> rookie RC Enerson nearly caused a high-speed collision in practice.<\/p>\n

O'Ward was leaving the pit lane during practice when Enerson suddenly divebombed across the track to the warm-up lane.<\/p>\n

Although the practice of aborting a flying lap and cutting across to the warm-up lane is allowed, it is frowned upon when cars are exiting the pit lane.<\/p>\n

Stan Sport is the only place to watch the 2023 IndyCar Series, featuring Will Power, Scott McLaughlin and Scott Dixon.<\/strong><\/em> All the action streaming ad free, live and on demand<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

O'Ward was none too happy with Enerson, raising his hand in disgust as he drove by him between turn two and turn three.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"What the f— was that?" O'Ward uttered over the radio to his crew.<\/p>\n

"What the f— is this guy doing?\ufeff"<\/p>\n

\"RC<\/p>\n

"That is unbelievable," said former IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe on the broadcast.<\/p>\n

"Pato O'Ward, rightfully unhappy\ufeff about that. You are technically allowed to dive in off the race track onto that acceleration lane, but only if it's clear.<\/p>\n

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"The spotter for the No.50, whoever that is, should've been able to tell RC 'Do not bail out, there is a car coming off pit lane'.<\/p>\n

"That could have been a monumental shunt."<\/p>\n

\"Pato<\/p>\n

A communication breakdown between Enerson and his Abel Motorsport crew reportedly led to the incident.<\/p>\n

Both Enerson and his pit stand were talking on the radio at the same time and the Floridian had not received clearance to cut across the track from his spotter.<\/p>\n

Bemused by the incident, O'Ward couldn't help but laugh in disbelief.<\/p>\n

"I'm sure he didn't do it on purpose, but yeah, that was definitely a close one," said the Mexican driver, who sits second in the IndyCar standings.<\/p>\n

"I don't know what to say. I mean, I was exiting pit lane. I was not expecting that. I think the guys on track\u2026 you obviously need to yield to whoever is going to be in pit lane.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"RC<\/p>\n

"I was already clear of the white wall so he must have seen me. I know these oval cars don't stop well at all, but that could have been nasty, for sure. Yeah, I don't know what to say."<\/p>\n

Friday's practice was once again led by Chip Ganassi Racing with last year's Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson topping out with an average lap of 369.516 km\/h (229.607 mph).<\/p>\n

Scott Dixon was runner-up for the second day in a row with a 368.839 km\/h (229.186 mph) average while Simon Pagenaud was the surprise packet for Meyer Shank Racing in third with a 368.026 km\/h (228.681 mph) best lap.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/IndyCar\/status\/1659327465414696960<\/a><\/p>\n

O'Ward was eighth fastest and the quickest of the McLaren entries while Enerson ended up 28th in the 34-car field.<\/p>\n

O'Ward lamented a lack of pace and inability to follow, which he worries may make for a tough 200-lap affair if he qualifies badly.<\/p>\n

"We're not quite there," he said.<\/p>\n

"The (new) aero bits seem to have done nothing for racing. Obviously, it's not ideal for when you're running 10th or 11th in a pack, you can't do anything.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"Even when you're seventh or sixth, you can't do anything. Only the first two leads car can kind of be overtaking each other and maybe a third car can join the party.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"Other than that, it's pretty much a follow-the-leader situation."<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/IndyCar\/status\/1659248298715385856<\/a><\/p>\n

Practice continues on Saturday at 2am and again at 10.30pm, the latter live, ad-free, and exclusively on Stan Sport.<\/p>\n

The first portion of qualifying gets underway on Sunday at 2am before the Top 12 shootout (1am), last-chance qualifier (6am), and top six shootout (7am) on Monday.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IndyCar Series front-runner Pato O'Ward was left lost for words after Indianapolis 500 rookie RC Enerson nearly caused a high-speed collision in practice. O'Ward was […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":298245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=298243"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298249,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298243\/revisions\/298249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/298245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=298243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=298243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=298243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}