INDIANAPOLIS – An unscheduled photo op featuring all three Rahal Letterman Lanigan cars crossing the Yard of Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway three abreast led to an incident between Team Penske rookie Scott McLaughlin and Andretti Autosport driver Colton Herta coming out of turn four at the start of Thursday’s Indianapolis 500 practice.
Herta’s Honda was already up to about 220 mph before he encountered the much slower Chevrolet driven by McLaughlin.
It happened so quickly, Herta’s spotter did not have time to react. Herta quickly reacted and went high coming out of turn four, squeezing his car against the fence and clipping part of the suspension on McLaughlin’s Chevrolet.
According to IndyCar vice president of communications Dave Furst, the incident is under review by IndyCar race officials, who were not told in advance of Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s photo plans. That included drivers Graham Rahal, two-time and defending Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato and Santino Ferrucci crossing the Yard of Bricks three-wide.
Herta’s Honda was taken back to the Gasoline Alley garages for repair.
“It turns out going three wide for a photo op during IndyCar practice isn’t an ideal situation,” Herta said. “They’re going 100 mph on the front straight while guys are running 220. Whoever is in charge of that at Rahal is a complete idiot and just risking everybody’s life out there for the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. Luckily, we got away with it easy. The car should be OK. I just pancaked the wall lightly and luckily wasn’t able to take out Scott in anyway. We’ll make sure the car is OK. I’m not mad at Scott (McLaughlin) and Simona (De Silvestro). It’s those Rahal guys that completely ruined everything. It’s crazy.
“I didn’t think at the time, it happened so fast, I didn’t think I could get to the left, I saw a little bit of a lane and was hoping Scott’s spotter would tell him, and he did right at the last second. He probably moved over half a car length, and it was just enough for me to scrape by against the wall and bobble between him and the wall.
“The most important thing is this is our main car. It’s the car we’ve prepped for Indy. It’s our fast car. And it didn’t get hurt too bad.”
McLaughlin’s car was quickly repaired, and he returned to the top-five in speeds with a lap at 222.518 mph in the No. 3 Pennzoil Chevrolet in less than an hour.
“I think the Rahal dudes were trying to get a nice little photo there,” McLaughlin said. “Colton came really quick, was coming fast, and I just checked up in front of him. It’s hard to check up around here. I just had no idea. I apologized to him, he apologized back to me, so a bit of a 50-50 thing.
“Nothing crazy, Dude I really don’t know what exactly happened. First lap of the morning and just trying to get around and do some pit stop practice. At least the car is very fast.”