Marcus Armstrong crashes at Indianapolis, not yet cleared to race

INDIANAPOLIS — Meyer Shank Racing driver Marcus Armstrong and Andretti Global driver Colton Herta both had big scares in brutal crashes on Saturday but have been cleared to attempt to make the Indianapolis 500 field.

Herta’s car got upside down after spinning and getting airborne after hitting the wall during his qualifying attempt. He was cleared shortly after his accident. Armstrong had a crushing blow earlier in the day in practice and had to wait nearly five hours before clearing concussion protocols.

Herta’s was the crash that looked scarier, as sparks flew from the halo that covers the driver’s head as the car skidded on its roof.

“It happened so fast, you know, you don’t realize it,” Herta said about the car being upside down and on its side. “It just sucks because it just makes the second impact so much bigger.”

Armstrong, a 24-year-old driver from New Zealand, said he cleared all X-rays and concussion checks.

“I feel good,” Armstrong said before quipping, “I feel a bit hungry. I could do a coffee.”

The car was destroyed and Armstrong will have to drive a converted road-course car. 

“I expect to be flat in Turn 1 and 2 on my first lap,” Armstrong said. “I’m confident we can make the field.”

Armstrong will be among the four drivers — Marco Andretti, Jacob Abel and Rinus VeeKay are the others — battling for the final three spots on the final day of qualifying on Sunday. Herta put his backup car in the field and will start 29th.

“This place doesn’t scare me at all,” Herta said before his qualifying run. “If they have a car ready for me, I’d go flat out right now. I guess the nervousness would come from what is this car going to be like compared to the other one? We have no clue.”

After he qualified, Herta reiterated that sentiment, as he never got a chance to shake down the backup car prior to qualifying (the same was true for Armstrong, whose qualifying run wasn’t fast enough to crack the top 30). So when he started his qualifying run, Herta had no clue if the car would be fast enough.

“It’s really just a guess, to be honest, when you’re put in that position,” Herta said. “You have to be flat [out]. It’s just kind of a hope that everybody did their job.

“I got a lot of trust in my guys. … I don’t have a problem hitting the wall here and having big ones like today. It doesn’t feel good and it sucks, but it doesn’t scare me when I get back in the race car.”

While drivers battled significant wind Saturday, neither driver blamed the wind.

Armstrong: “I was expecting clearly a lot more grip when I arrived in Turn 1 than what there was. However, I feel like we didn’t quite get everything right. So it is what it is. My first reaction was like, I hope I’m OK because I thought that maybe it was a little worse than it was and I was hoping that I wasn’t badly injured.”

Herta: “It was sudden. How the wind was, it shouldn’t have been up [on the side] because of a wind gust. I think we’re just too [riding the car] on the nose to begin with. As soon as I turned into [Turn] 1, it was just gone.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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