{"id":379231,"date":"2024-03-24T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-24T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=379231"},"modified":"2024-03-24T22:03:20","modified_gmt":"2024-03-24T22:03:20","slug":"aussies-near-miss-as-nasty-crash-leaves-star-fuming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=379231","title":{"rendered":"Aussie's near miss as 'nasty' crash leaves star fuming"},"content":{"rendered":"

IndyCar<\/a> driver Romain Grosjean<\/a> couldn't quite believe his luck after his hopes of winning a sizeable sum in the $1 Million Challenge were dashed just seconds into the race.<\/p>\n

The Juncos Hollinger Racing driver was hit by six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon in the turn one braking zone at the Thermal Club, sending the former F1<\/a> driver into a spin.<\/p>\n

Grosjean slid out of control before sliding into the side of Ed Carpenter Racing's Rinus VeeKay.<\/p>\n

Stan Sport is the only place to watch the IndyCar Series $1 Million Challenge.<\/strong><\/em> All the action streaming ad free, live and on demand<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Frenchman was irate, yelling at an official before taking aim at Dixon for the contact.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

"I got hit really, really badly at the back and then the car spun," said Grosjean.<\/p>\n

"Who's going to pay for the damage? You know, we come here with no points on the line, we do nothing wrong, and the car is completely smashed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"Whatever. It's not what I signed up to IndyCar for."<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> F1 star hit with costly penalty after terrifying crash\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Sainz reigns supreme just two weeks after surgery<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\ufeffREAD MORE:<\/strong> Carnage in Melbourne as Verstappen, Hamilton bow out<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Dixon, who took ownership of the incident, was penalised for the crash.<\/p>\n

That ended his hopes of advancing to the $1 million race.<\/p>\n

"There was a lot going on, that's for sure," said Dixon.<\/p>\n

\"Aussie's<\/p>\n

"I think initially (Colton) Herta and I got into it. Then Grosjean went to the left. I thought he was going all the way to the left, which was going to open up the middle, then all of a sudden he started to fade back to the right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"Everyone stopped so early, a lot earlier than I thought we were going to, especially with the massive headwind that we've got going on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"Obviously I don't want to collect anyone and apologise to anyone who was collected in that incident. It was all going on in a short space of time. Sometimes that happens, unfortunately."<\/p>\n

Will Power was a victim in the melee, forced to take evasive action.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He started the race in sixth but fell to the tail of the field and was unable to work his way back into a transfer spot.<\/p>\n

"That's nasty," said Power, watching the replay of the crash.<\/p>\n

"It's actually a nasty situation there when you've got that kerb. Grosjean coming through the dirt. Poor old Rinus. Boom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"I saw it coming when I was at the kerb. I was like 'Yep, we're good! Oh, no we're not'. It was very close."<\/p>\n

\"Scott<\/p>\n

Meyer Shank Racing's Felix Rosenqvist won the first heat ahead of Scott McLaughlin and his Team Penske stablemate Josef Newgarden.<\/p>\n

Despite copping a whack in the crash, Christian Lundgaard made it to the chequered flag in fourth for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.<\/p>\n

Grosjean's teammate Agustin Canapino was fifth and Colton Herta sixth in the last transfer spot for Andretti Global.<\/p>\n

The second heat race was dominated by Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou.<\/p>\n

There was an entertaining battle for the final transfer spot with three McLarens trying to beat Meyer Shank Racing's Tom Blomqvist.<\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/p>\n

Alexander Rossi ultimately took sixth after fending off his teammates Pato O'Ward and Callum Ilott.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Palou was untroubled at the head of the field, leading teammate Marcus Armstrong, Graham Rahal, Linus Lundqvist, and Pietro Fittipaldi.<\/p>\n

The headline 20-lap race was relatively uneventful outside of Rossi and Herta opting for a rogue strategy.<\/p>\n

The pair both fell to the back of the pack and cruised around at a pedestrian pace to conserve tyre life before the half-time break.<\/p>\n

On the race restart, they surged forward with Herta rising to fourth at the chequered flag.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Palou controlled the contest and stormed to victory ahead of McLaughlin and Rosenqvist.<\/p>\n

With victory, Palou earned $766,000 ($500,000 USD) for his team while McLaughlin came home with $536,570 ($350,000 USD) and Rosenqvist $383,250 ($250,000 USD).<\/p>\n

Asked what he'd do with the money, Palou replied "I need to buy a lot of diapers and pyjamas, so probably I will do that and probably do a small party with the boys."<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/IndyCar\/status\/1771982558676373540<\/a><\/p>\n

Herta said he was optimistic his strategy would work.<\/p>\n

"Inside the car it sucked and I'm sure for people watching they wanted to see both cars going at it, but you got that in the last half," said Herta.<\/p>\n

"I think our strategy worked. We were talking about it, on pure pace maybe we can move up six spots at most. If we get a little lucky and other cars have some problems, but if we save tyres we might be able to get a little bit more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"That's what we went for and obviously the tyre advantage was pretty big so we were able to pick off everybody on the way up there."<\/p>\n

IndyCar returns on April 22 with the Grand Prix of Long Beach with coverage live, ad-free, and exclusively on Stan Sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IndyCar driver Romain Grosjean couldn't quite believe his luck after his hopes of winning a sizeable sum in the $1 Million Challenge were dashed just […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":379233,"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\/379231"}],"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=379231"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":379238,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379231\/revisions\/379238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/379233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=379231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=379231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=379231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}