Philip Morris renews Ferrari sponsorship on the quiet

(espn.go.com 5-14-15)

Tobacco company Philip Morris renewed its backing of the Ferrari F1 team over a year ago, but opted not to publicise the news.

The current deal was due to expire at the end of 2015, but Bloomberg reports that Philip Morris agreed to extend its sponsorship until the end of 2018 at a board meeting last year. Tobacco advertising is banned in Formula One and Philip Morris has not had clear Marlboro branding on the car since 2008. However, it continues to back the team and uses its association with Ferrari to promote Marlboro cigarettes in certain territories.

The links between the tobacco company and Ferrari deepened last year when former Philip Morris marketing executive Maurizio Arrivabene took over the role of team principal. Philip Morris is the only tobacco company remaining in Formula One and Sports Pro Magazine reports that it is spending somewhere in the region of $160 million a year on its deal.

Marlboro has a long history in F1 dating back to 1972 when it first sponsored BRM and Iso Marlboro. From 1974 to 1996 it had a series of sponsorship deals with McLaren before switching to a title deal with Ferrari. In 2010 the Ferrari deal came under scrutiny when Marlboro was accused of running subliminal advertising on the cars with its barcode design on the engine cover. Soon after a new Scuderia Ferrari logo appeared in its place and is still carried on the cars today.

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http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/12885170/philip-morris-renews-ferrari-sponsorship-quiet

Sebastien Bourdais: Stop making assumptions Indy is safe

(by Matt Weaver frontstretch.com 5-21-15)

Veteran IndyCar champion Sebastien Bourdais accused the media Thursday of overblowing the rash of incidents during the buildup to the Indianapolis 500 this past week, claiming the rhetoric coming from the media center has made fans lose sight of the fact that open wheel racing is inherently dangerous.

Bourdais was not willing to say whether or not the aero kits or changes to the floorboard of the cars may have played a role in the violent crashes that befell Helio Castroneves, Josef Newgarden, Ed Carpenter and James Hinchcliffe over the past week. However, he believes with 100 percent conviction that Indy car racing will never be 100 percent safe, a point he claims both the league and the media that covers it has done a poor job of illustrating to the masses.

“At the end of the day, we need to stop making assumptions that what we do is safe,” Bourdais said. “We need to get on with the program. People are not coming into the grandstands to watch parked cars after someone had a crash. This is part of it.”

Bourdais says that fans and media have forgotten the carnage associated with Indianapolis due to the recent lack of crashing over recent seasons. The four-time Champ Car World Series champion was quick to point out that he saw Chip Gannasi Racing lose five cars in one week back in 2005 “and that was just one team.”

Bourdais didn’t stop there, claiming the perception of safety surrounding the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” has changed and the picture painted isn’t entirely accurate.

“We need to be careful,” he said. “Because the more attention we give to these incidents and more ‘Oh my god, what is going on,’ reactions we give and the more we spin this story around, the more freaked out people are going to get about it.

“This is just what we do. Whether it’s right or wrong, some people actually come to see this — not that I like it but that’s the reality. If we take that away — I’m not saying people need to get hurt — but there is the spectacle [we lose].”

Bourdais added that Indianapolis is the “Greatest Spectacle” and not exactly a great spectacle of safety or the best overall race. The Frenchman says he has to make peace with his own mortality every time he straps into his machine and that this aspect of the sport has to be acknowledged.

In the aftermath of the Hinchcliffe crash, which sent a piece of suspension through the driver’s leg and pelvic region, national and motorsport media alike have been calling for IndyCar to reduce speeds and place canopies over the DW12 cockpit.

These changes are in direct conflict with two of IndyCar’s most cherished traditions — open-wheeled, open-cockpit cars and the pursuit of speed. Bourdais, for his part does not want to see them tossed out in the name of unachievable safety.

“I just think we need to be careful not to lose our heritage, because this is at the root of what we do,” the former Formula 1 driver added. “I’ve witnessed in Europe what improvements in safety can do to tracks that were once awesome and now have no personality.

“I don’t want that to happen to IndyCar. I think it’s one thing to do everything you can to make the car safer, to race better and smarter while improving safety with the SAFER Barrier and fencing and things like that. It’s another thing to destroy the purpose of why we do the things we do and how we do it.”

Bourdais said he was alarmed to see so many fans leave the speedway in the hours following the Hinchcliffe crash on Monday afternoon as IndyCar launched an investigation into the combined cause of all four crashes. In comparison, he recalled a time where drivers and cars would burst into flames, hit the wall at 180 mph and perish only for everyone to stick around. In those instances, cars would be back on track just half an hour after the track officials cleaned up the mess. While the veteran doesn’t want the sport to return to the “killing years” he urged the racing community to hold back on potential major changes.

“Absolutely, (people are overreacting) this month,” Bourdais said. Absolutely. We’ve seen a lot less crashing with the DW12, which is a good thing but we shouldn’t take them for granted and think it isn’t going to happen anymore.

“People make mistakes, whether it’s human mistakes or mechanical mistakes and it’s going to happen. I think it has to be acknowledged and respected. When you travel at the speed we travel, things can go bad. And when they do, there’s no need say, ‘Oh my God, what happened,’ because what happened is the danger associated with what we do.

“That’s the end of it and there’s nothing else to it. Nothing.”

At the end of the day, Bourdais said IndyCar manufactured their own negative reaction to the crashing at the speedway. He believes that stopping the practice session on Monday for three hours ultimately led to the rash of negative media coverage and it was ultimately unnecessary.

“If they didn’t stop the practice, if we kept going when someone hit the fence and turned it around, I don’t think people would have made a big deal about it,” Bourdais said. “You can investigate and try to find solutions without going all out and sending everyone home.

“But again, it’s a personal thing and it’s something I’m going to bring up at some point.”

Bourdais said he understands the modern day pursuit of safety but not the current rhetoric prevailing on the eve of the biggest race of the season.

“This is something else,” he said. “Something different. We’re going close to (240 mph) between walls. I mean, let’s put this in perspective. Did anyone really believe this was safe?”

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http://frontstretch.com/2015/05/21/sebastien-bourdais-stop-making-assumptions-this-is-safe/

IndyCar driver raises concern about design of wishbone that injured James Hinchcliffe in crash

(by Nate Ryan motorsportstalk.nbcsports.com 5-21-15)

While airborne crashes have sparked much of the discourse about safety the past week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, one driver is as concerned about what’s happening beneath the cars.

James Hinchcliffe suffered a life-threatening leg injury Monday after a piece of the wishbone – part of the underbody suspension that connects the wheels – pierced his car’s tub. Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Oriol Servia suggested Thursday during Indianapolis 500 Media Day that it might have been avoidable.

“To me, that’s unacceptable,” he said. “I think there were things that we were doing on these cars for 20 years that all of a sudden we have forgotten on this car to avoid wishbones going (through the tub).”

Hinchcliffe’s injury mirrored a 2003 crash at Twin Ring Motegi in which Tony Kanaan’s leg also was speared by the steel piece. Servia said IndyCar reinforced an area to help prevent such injuries, but that the design changed when the DW12 chassis made its debut three years ago.

“We used to have a connecting rod,” he said. “All that did was to avoid one of the two sides (of the wishbone) going in (the car). For 20 years we had that on all cars, and all of a sudden, this car, it wasn’t needed.

“I don’t know why. I might be speaking out of turn, and they’ve done other things to avoid it, but obviously whatever that is, it’s not working. So that’s why I’m not happy. I know there are a lot of smart people working on it. I just don’t know what can be done for this race.”

It’s also uncertain what can be done to keep the cars from going skyward after spinning backward, which was a common denominator in wrecks involving Hinchcliffe, Helio Castroneves, Josef Newgarden and Ed Carpenter. Servia said he watched a replay of the 2014 race and noticed that Scott Dixon spun backward at high speed without his car taking flight.

“It’s very difficult to solve with two days to go without knowing exactly what makes them fly,” Servia said. “There’s something I feel is in the rear bumpers — the whole body is different, so it could be many things playing at once — but it is different, and it’s worse.

“Already we’re having this bad sensation about how the week was going. Then Hinch has this crash, nothing related to the other crashes, just one failure in a suspension (part) that happened. But the way he crashes, and the  wishbone gets into the car. The guy is alive and great, but it’s just so lucky.”
Though Servia said Sunday’s race “may not be as safe as I’d like us to be,” he also accepts there are limits to preventive measures.

“This will never be a safe race,” he said. “It’s an open wheel car going 230 mph over three hours trying to win. Safe is not really what defines it. It will never be. But I think it could be safer than what we’ll do Sunday.”

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http://motorsportstalk.nbcsports.com/2015/05/21/indycar-driver-raises-concern-about-design-of-wishbone-that-injured-james-hinchcliffe-in-crash/

How fast is too fast?

(Stefano Coletti - KV Racing)

(by John Oreovicz espn.go.com 5-20-15)

The Verizon IndyCar Series held a news conference Sunday to explain changes being made for safety reasons to slow down the cars that will race in the Indianapolis 500.

At that same news conference, those same officials said they still hope to make those same cars some 10 mph faster next year in an attempt to set a new Indianapolis Motor Speedway track record on the occasion of the 100th Indy 500.

In the wake of five accidents at the Brickyard in the space of six days, one of which will sideline popular driver James Hinchcliffe for the foreseeable future, those were two very conflicting messages coming from series management.

And before proceeding with the notion of trying to flirt with 240 mph at Indy, some hard questions need to be answered to determine whether it's a goal that is really worth pursuing.

The plan that IndyCar put into action three years ago to eclipse Arie Luyendyk's two-decades-old standard for speed took a serious hit this week when the latest generation of open-wheel racers with new bodywork produced by series engine suppliers Chevrolet and Honda showed a worrying propensity to fly after crashing.

While the search for fixes to that fundamental problem was already flat out, the wisdom of chasing even higher speeds was brought into doubt when Hinchcliffe crashed heavily on Monday afternoon after a front-suspension-component failure.

It's unlikely Hinchcliffe's injuries would have been substantially less severe had he suffered the same failure at 200 mph instead of the reported 228 mph he was traveling before he hit the Turn 3 wall.

But Indy car drivers from the present and past continue to believe that major and fundamental changes need to be made to the way that Indy cars are designed to achieve their speed, no matter what that number is.

"In years past, we were much quicker in a straight line and slower in the corners," observed 2013 Indy 500 champion Tony Kanaan. "Nowadays we are kind of doing the opposite. So I would say there is a balance that we need to achieve."

When Luyendyk set the track record in 1996, there was still a considerable difference in the peak velocity the cars achieved on the straights compared to their speed through the corners.

These days, there is little more than a 5 mph difference between the speed at which a driver enters a corner and exits. On big ovals, Indy car drivers are essentially battling a restrictor-plate effect.
"I've been saying that ever since I joined the series that we need more power and less grip," said defending IndyCar Series champion Will Power.

"As soon as you add too much grip and not enough power, it takes it out of the driver's hands and you're just guiding the car, you're not driving it."

Throughout the history of the sport, every auto racing sanctioning body has reduced engine power in an effort to keep speeds under control. But developments in other areas of the car -- mainly aerodynamics -- have fundamentally altered the way race cars achieve a lap time.

With straight-line speed tightly controlled, engineers have concentrated on creating higher cornering speeds, whether in Indy cars, stock cars or Formula One cars.

Modern F1 cars already look like speeded-up slot cars, and the F1 Strategy Group recently announced a plan to reduce lap times by no less than five to six seconds by 2017. Meanwhile, high cornering speed is an issue being brought to the forefront in NASCAR by several drivers, including Carl Edwards and six-time Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson.

Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Rick Mears believes that the IndyCar Series needs to examine a different balance between power and downforce.

"Today, aerodynamics controls the sport," Mears said. "It dictates everything about the car. They've been going down a path with more and more downforce, and they're just boxing themselves into a corner. The drivers don't want pack racing, but they can't escape a formula that produces pack racing.

"I want to feel like I'm driving the car," Mears continued. "There's driving and there's guiding, and they're two different things. To me, the fun part was: Give me more power than I can use and let me figure out how to use it better than the next guy."

Luyendyk maintains that the key to his one- and four-lap records at IMS (237.498 and 236.986 mph, respectively) was an ideal balance between power and downforce in the Reynard/Ford-Cosworth he drove.

"It wasn't frightening at all because the cars back then had a lot of downforce and a lot more horsepower, and the combination of that produced those speeds," he said. "Also in 1996, the track had just been resurfaced, Firestone came out with a better tire, and they did away with the rumble strips, so they gave us more racetrack.

"The following year, in 1997, they went to the normally aspirated IRL cars with less downforce, and I was doing 218 with the new car," he added. "But believe me, it was more frightening to do 218 in that car than it was the to do 238 the year before."

For years at Indianapolis, the prospect of longtime public address announcer Tom Carnegie proclaiming "A new track record!" was part of the lure of being there.

It happened fairly steadily until 1973, when a difficult month of May left two drivers and one safety worker dead, prompting significant changes to Indy car regulations the following year, including much smaller wings and reduced fuel capacity.

The magic 200 mph barrier was eclipsed by Tom Sneva in 1977, and speeds continued to climb at a controlled pace until peaking in the 230-235 mph range in the 1990s.

This week, the new generation of cars featuring turbo V-6 engines and aerodynamic components produced by Chevrolet and Honda produced the highest lap speeds seen at Indianapolis since that period.

But it also created the uncomfortable spectacle of race cars traveling through the air and upside down.

Which means it's once again time to ask: How fast is too fast? Without a stopwatch, can a fan in the stands tell the difference between a 215 mph lap and one at 225?

"If you can tell the difference between a car going 230 miles an hour and 235 on the straight, then you're my hero," said Team Penske's Juan Pablo Montoya.

There's also the very real question of just how much physical force the drivers' bodies can take. A CART-sanctioned IndyCar event scheduled at Texas Motor Speedway in 2001 was canceled the morning of the race when it was revealed that the high G-forces produced while turning 235 mph laps around the high-banked TMS ovals was causing some drivers to get dizzy or black out.

Kanaan was one of the drivers who practiced and qualified for the Texas CART race that never happened. And while the former "500" winner and IndyCar Series champion supports every effort to make the sport safer, he admitted that the element of danger isn't enough to stop him from strapping into a car.

Whether he's trying to crack 220 mph or 240.

"I think as drivers, we're fully aware of that," Kanaan said. "Every time we hop in that race car, we don't know if we're going to come out of it in one piece, if something's going to happen to you. And that's something that we're going to have to live with. That's what makes us different than other people.

"That's why not everybody can do this," he added. "It's never easy to see a friend of yours get hurt or lose a friend of yours. But this is the sport that we chose.

"If people feel uncomfortable with that, you shouldn't be in the race car."

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http://espn.go.com/racing/indycar/story/_/id/12916018/have-speeds-indycar-other-racing-risen-high-enough

IndyCar's accidents have made a mess of the Indy 500

(by Jenna Fryer sports.yahoo.com 5-18-15)

IndyCar had a crisis looming well before James Hinchcliffe was injured in another spectacular accident during preparations for the most esteemed race in motorsports.

Three cars have gone airborne, and one of the series' most popular drivers was in the intensive care unit Monday night after surgery on an injury to Hinchcliffe's left thigh suffered when he crashed following a suspension part breaking. IndyCar said he was in stable condition.

As Hinchcliffe's car shot back down the track toward the apron, it quickly tilted on its side and seemed headed to a rollover before it snapped back down on all four wheels.

Hinchcliffe's car did not go airborne - oh, it certainly tried to, even after a good bit of speed had been scrubbed from it when it slammed into a wall - but that might have been because half the car was destroyed. He also wasn't in a Chevrolet, the automaker under scrutiny since three of its cars took flight during wrecks last week.

Although his crash was unrelated to last week's wrecks, it was still ugly and Hinchcliffe joins a list that includes Helio Castroneves, the three-time Indianapolis 500 winner, flipping his car last Wednesday. Josef Newgarden went airborne the next day, and finally on Sunday, Ed Carpenter, an Indianapolis standout and an heir to the family that controls all things IndyCar, became the third Chevrolet driver in five days to go airborne.

But this crisis had been in the works since the season-opening race two months ago, where a woman suffered a fractured skull when a piece from one of the new aerokits on the cars flew over the St. Petersburg, Florida, grandstands and hit her.

From that very first race, it was clear there are many unknowns about the bodywork kits and IndyCar has been reacting nearly every week to situations that no one predicted.

Why? Because they didn't do enough testing, and when any bit of contact was creating debris fields all over the race track, someone should have had the sense to say 'Maybe we should get the speedway kits out and make sure they don't also have any unforeseen problems.'

Alas, the speedway cars didn't hit the track until the beginning of May, and until cars started sailing, no one had any idea that could happen.

Cars aren't meant to leave the racing surface, and when they do, it's a very big deal. Such a big deal that the three flips have overshadowed Pippa Mann's tremendous hit last Wednesday into both an inside wall and then into the attenuator in pit lane.

A day before that, Simona de Silvestro watched her car erupt into flames in a standard incident that made for tremendous photographs but was mundane in the world of racing.

All of these incidents create the images that are drawing worldwide attention to the ''The Greatest Spectacle in Racing'' a full week before the renowned event.

Maybe that's not such a bad thing for IndyCar, the besieged series that just can't seem to get anything right, but stays in business year after year in part because it calls the Indianapolis 500 its own. Some buzz around this crown jewel event can only help.

Not like this, though.

It shouldn't be accidents followed by the appearance of an amateur hour in crisis management from series leadership creating the narrative leading into Sunday's race.

This is a mess - a hold-your-breath-and-hope-for-the-best situation - at a time when IndyCar was so excited to show off the new bodywork on the Chevrolets and the Hondas and the increased speeds around the famed Brickyard.

Instead, it's possible that Chevrolet's design contributed to its three cars going airborne. And even though Honda had yet to have a serious problem - unless, of course, you count the total domination Chevrolet has had of the speed charts - IndyCar ordered both manufacturers to make changes before Sunday's qualifying session.

But as a weary Mark Miles and Derrick Walker met the media Sunday, it was clear series management was overwhelmed with the problem at hand.

Racing is dangerous, we're told that after every wincing wreck, even the ones that end in injury, or, on rare occasion the past decade, death. But it's the responsibility of the series to create the safest conditions possible, and Miles and Walker have a mess on their hands.

IndyCar was badly wounded following the death of two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon in the 2011 season finale. Wheldon was killed racing for a $5 million prize in a gimmick designed to draw more eyeballs to the series.

One of the most charismatic drivers in the under-marketed series was a victim of a rules package that created dangerous pack racing on a high-speed track where very few competitors in the field had any experience.

Many tried to voice their concerns in the days leading up to the accident, but they were shouting in the wind: Leadership was committed to the finale, and when a series is struggling for attention, there aren't very many people to complain about a possible problem.

Four years after Wheldon's underdog Indy 500 victory, people are paying attention and noticing that something seems to be amiss in Indy.

IndyCar learned from Wheldon's death, and everyone understands the series doesn't want to endure another such heartbreak. But the series has only itself to blame for this mess.

Maybe they've hit on something that will keep the cars on the track, and hours after Hinchcliffe's accident brought Monday's action to a halt, the drivers were back on track for a flawless final session filled with inter-brand drafting, slingshot passes and the tight racing which fans have come to expect of Wheldon's namesake DW-12 chassis.

Maybe Sunday will be void of any major incidents, and maybe, just maybe, the 99th running will be the greatest Indy 500 in history.

But it's just a guess at this point, and IndyCar officials better be crossing their fingers that they've gotten this right.

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http://sports.yahoo.com/news/indycars-accidents-made-mess-indy-500-235159875--irl.html

Quick safety team response key in critical Hinchcliffe crash

(by Robin Miller and Marshall Pruett racer.com 5-19-15)

Great response by IndyCar's safety and medical teams more than likely saved James Hinchcliffe's life on Monday.

The personable Canadian driver was bleeding profusely after a vicious accident in Turn 3 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and, according to one of Hinchcliffe's associates who asked not to be identified when speaking with RACER, it was a life-threatening situation that was handled to perfection by IndyCar's HOLMATRO Safety Team, and by doctors inside the ambulance that rushed him to IU Health Methodist Hospital before surgeons completed the save.

In the impact, which flattened the right side of the chassis, one of the suspension wishbones penetrated the Dallara safety cell, and subsequently caused the majority of the physical damage Hinchcliffe received. RACER has confirmed through multiple sources that Hinchcliffe had the steel wishbone enter and exit his right leg, then enter his upper left thigh, and continue into his pelvic region before it came to a stop.

The suspension component pinned the 28-year-old in the car, leading the safety team to cut the wishbone from the chassis to allow Hinchcliffe's extraction.

With the multiple intrusions, Hinchcliffe experienced massive blood loss at the crash site, and despite the gravity of the soft tissue injuries to his lower extremities, stopping the bleeding became an immediate priority for the medical staff to address once he was pulled from the chassis.

After being placed in the ambulance, the doctors and technicians inside evidently stabilized Hinchcliffe's injuries. It's not known how long he was in surgery but it was "touch and go" for a while, according to the source.

"He's probably not going to race anymore this year but the most important thing is that all those great people saved his life," said his friend.

Hinchcliffe, who serves as Schmidt Peterson Motorsport's lead driver and won the IndyCar race at New Orleans in April, crashed entering Turn 3 during Monday's practice session. According to timing and scoring data, he was carrying at least 228mph of momentum before a right-front suspension failure sent the No. 5 ARROW Dallara-Honda into the SAFER barrier nose first. Without the ability to steer the car, Hinchcliffe was unable to alter his course. The force of the impact reportedly measured 125 Gs.

Many observers, including those who've witnessed some of the most troubling crashes at Indianapolis, believe Hinchcliffe's impact was among the most violent on record. Upon reaching the crash site, emergency workers radioed the incident in as a "Code 5," which is reserved for traumatic situations.

Hinchcliffe remained in intensive care but was resting comfortably on Tuesday morning.

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http://www.racer.com/indycar/item/116939-indy-500-hinchcliffe-saved-from-serious-injuries

James Hinchcliffe's Honda briefly overturns in wreck

(espn.go.com 5-18-15)

James Hinchcliffe is in stable condition after becoming the latest IndyCar Series driver to crash at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Hinchcliffe underwent surgery at Indiana University Methodist Hospital on an injury to his upper left thigh suffered in the crash, the IndyCar Series announced.

Hinchcliffe's leg was pierced by the car's right front rocker and the piece of equipment needed to be removed, according to two people familiar with the crash who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because IndyCar and Schmidt Peterson Motorsports were not releasing details of the injury. The surgery also was needed to stop massive bleeding.

"Obviously we're relieved that James is awake and out of surgery," Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team owner Sam Schmidt said.

"That's the most important thing on our minds right now, and we will do absolutely everything required to ensure a complete recovery."

A suspected mechanical failure sent Hinchcliffe's Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda hard into the Turn 3 wall Monday.

Replays showed sparks trailing from the No. 5 Honda when it shot directly up the track and struck the SAFER barrier with the right front wheel first. The car spun around one and a half times and briefly overturned before landing on its wheels and stopping in Turn 4.

Hinchcliffe had just completed a lap at 221.3 mph and was drafting the Team Penske Chevrolet of Juan Pablo Montoya when the accident occurred.

It took the IndyCar safety team several minutes to extract Hinchcliffe from the car, which sustained heavy right-side damage. The driver was reported to be awake and alert before being laced on a backboard and transported to IU Methodist Hospital.

Hinchcliffe's right front suspension failed, Honda spokesman Dan Layton said. Layton said Honda officials aren't concerned about the safety of the company's aero kit but are more concerned about what caused the suspension problem as Sunday's Indianapolis 500 nears.

"It's gut-wrenching," said defending Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay, a teammate of Hinchcliffe's until this season. "It's terrible. There's no other way you can think about it."

This was the fourth time in the past week that an Indy car was pitched upside down, but the first involving a Honda car. The three previous rollovers all featured Chevrolet-designed bodywork.

Helio Castroneves and Josef Newgarden went airborne in crashes last week that raised concerns about the safety of the new oval aero kits. On Sunday, Ed Carpenter flipped his car on its side in practice leading up to Indy 500 qualifying.

IndyCar Series officials made a last-minute rule change for qualifying in the wake of the three Chevrolet accidents, reducing turbocharger boost to decrease power and removing aerodynamic panels.

Scott Dixon of New Zealand took his second Indy pole with a four-lap average of 226.760 mph Sunday -- and there were no wrecks.

The series halted Monday's scheduled 3½-hour practice session and investigated the Hinchcliffe crash. Practice resumed at 4:15 p.m. ET.

"It was shocking," driver Townsend Bell said. "The worst possible accident that you can have here is to be fully loaded right in the middle of the corner and have something break. It was a really horrible circumstance for him."

Derrick Walker, IndyCar's president of competition and operations, has blamed Castroneves' wreck on an aero balance setting that was pushed too far and Newgarden's on a cut tire, and said Carpenter simply had an accident.

A year ago, Hinchcliffe sustained a concussion when struck in the head by debris from another car in the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis. After the road course race, he missed five days while waiting to be cleared and then qualified second, despite limited practice time.

Hinchcliffe, who won at New Orleans last month and is eighth in the driver standings, qualified 24th for this year's 500.

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http://espn.go.com/racing/story/_/id/12908418/james-hinchcliffe-taken-hospital-wreck-indianapolis-motor-speedway

(video of Hinchcliffe's crash)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvtAq7K0uYo