“The opening lap wreck was ridiculous and thank God everybody was alright. It’s so unfortunate at the beginning of a 500-mile race. The car was good yesterday and we just needed to put together 500 clean miles. The DHL car deserved to be fighting for a win today. We did all we could do after coming back out. The guys did a great job; unbelievable effort in getting the car turned back around. But we were really loose in [Turn] 3, and it turned out we had holes in the underwing from the crash. The last thing we want to do is be a risk out there and damage more equipment, so we got the points we could and came in just before the weather hit.”
When the green flag waved at Pocono Raceway, there was no shortage of immediate action. Before the first lap was complete, the first caution period of the ABC Supply 500 was brought out and eventually led to the first of two red-flag periods.
In Turn 2, the No. 30 machine of Takuma Sato came down into the racing machine of Alexander Rossi who was in the middle of a three-wide run with Sato and Ryan Hunter-Reay. The contact forced Rossi into the No. 28 machine and collected the race cars of James Hinchcliffe and Felix Rosenqvist.
Both the 27 and 28 teams worked quickly to get both cars repaired and back on track. Hunter-Reay returned to the 2.5-mile track on Lap 85 and Rossi on Lap 88, after both serving a 10-lap hold penalty for car repairs under the red flag.
After 128 laps, inclement weather nearing the track forced a red flag and when the rain came, so did the checkered. The team leaves Pocono looking forward to the Bommarito 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
- STARTED: 6th // FINISHED: 19th
- CHAMPIONSHIP: 6th (344 pts.)
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