INDYCAR: De Silvestro Leads Crash-Filled Morning Warmup

IndyCar

INDYCAR: De Silvestro Leads Crash-Filled Morning Warmup

Simona de Silvestro led Sunday's pre-race warmup in Baltimore, but it was Tony Kanaan's brake failure and big crash that made the headlines.

Marshall Pruett | Posted September 04, 2011

Tony Kanaan took a wild and scary ride Sunday morning in Baltimore. (IZOD IndyCar Series)

IndyCar sophomore Simona de Silvestro led Sunday's pre-race warmup in Baltimore, but it was Tony Kanaan's brake failure and big crash that made the headlines.

The 30-minute session delivered just four laps of action as the result of two crashes, with Kanaan's harrowing Turn 1 crash bringing out the first red flag.

The right side of Helio Castroneves' car shows the intentional scars inflicted by Tony Kanaan as he used the Team Penske machine to slow himself down after suffering brake failure. (Marshall Pruett)

“The brake pedal went to the floor," Kanaan told SPEED's Robin Miller. "I wasn’t sure who was ahead of me, but he was going to slow me down."

With no brakes at the end of the 170 mph front stright, Kanaan relied on one of his best friends, Team Penske's Helio Castroneves, to slow his GEICO-sponsored car before striking the barriers.

Turning left as the corner approached, Kanaan intentionally steered his car into the side of Castroneves, launching the KV Racing car high into the air and scrubbing off speed.

"I did a track walk last night and saw that on the right side in Turn 1, there's some tires in front of a cement wall on the right, and on the left, there's an opening and then some tires--no cement wall. So I steered left... It probably saved my life."

After the crash, Kanaan was concerned Castroneves would be upset, and explained his rationale.

"I told him, 'hey brother, sorry, I had to use you to slow me down,' and he understood."

Castroneves was thankful his former Firestone Indy Lights teammates was unhurt.

"Fortunately, I'm OK and Tony is OK," he said. "He hit my [car] from the back and was flying over me, which was really concerning because I saw him fly over me and hit the wall in a very awkward position, so I was concerned, but when I saw him get out of the car and he was very alert, I was glad he was OK. Absolutely everything will be fine for the race. We're going with the spare car because we don't have time to fix the primary car."

KV Racing co-owner Jimmy Vasser told SPEED.com the team was evaluating whether Kanaan's car can be repaired in time for the race, and the team later confirmed it took E.J. Viso's backup car and added Kanaan's sponsor logos for the Brazilian to use today. INDYCAR also told the team Kanaan would retain his 11th-place starting position.

PHOTOS: Click Here or on the image below to view INDYCAR: Baltimore 2011.

The second crash--also in Turn 1--involved three cars, with Panther Racing's JR Hildebrand slipping down the inside of the corner while Dreyer & Reinbold's Ana Beatriz was turning in. Hildebrand's car was pinched into the right side wall, Beatriz rode over Hildebrand's left front tire with her right rear, sending her airborne and into the corner exit tire barrier.

Dale Coyne Racing's James Jakes was following immediately behind, and nerfed into the back of Hildebrand's car, blocking the track.

A red flag ensued, bringing an end to the session.

Rank, Driver, Gap, Best Lap

1 Simona de Silvestro 0.0000 1:24.0676
2 Danica Patrick 1.0387 1:25.1063
3 Tony Kanaan 1.0443 1:25.1119
4 Dario Franchitti 1.2861 1:25.3537
5 Will Power 1.3688 1:25.4364
6 Mike Conway 1.7025 1:25.7701
7 Marco Andretti 1.9304 1:25.9980
8 Scott Dixon 2.3317 1:26.3993
9 James Hinchcliffe 2.3663 1:26.4339
10 James Jakes 2.7672 1:26.8348
11 Sebastien Bourdais 3.0284 1:27.0960
12 Alex Tagliani 3.2661 1:27.3337
13 Helio Castroneves 3.3039 1:27.3715
14 Ryan Briscoe 3.5162 1:27.5838
15 Ana Beatriz 3.7740 1:27.8416
16 Martin Plowman 4.0903 1:28.1579
17 EJ Viso 4.5042 1:28.5718
18 JR Hildebrand 4.7208 1:28.7884
19 Vitor Meira 5.6097 1:29.6773
20 Ryan Hunter-Reay 5.7942 1:29.8618
21 Oriol Servia 8.0614 1:32.1290
22 Sebastian Saavedra 8.7185 1:32.7861
23 Ed Carpenter 9.1761 1:33.2437
24 Charlie Kimball 9.4843 1:33.5519
25 Giorgio Pantano 10.3414 1:34.4090
26 Tomas Scheckter 15.0248 1:39.0924
27 Takuma Sato 37.3681 2:01.4357
28 Graham Rahal

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, covering IndyCar and sports cars. He also contributes to Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.