Wickens hurt in wreck at Pocono
LONG POND, Pa. — Alexander Rossi was as worried as the rest of the IndyCar field when a violent wreck shot Robert Wickens’ car airborne, ripped up the catch fence and left the tub of the rookie’s Honda toppled on the asphalt.
The incident Sunday at Pocono Raceway was the latest grim reminder of how drivers in open-wheel racing put their lives on the line.
“It’s part of our job, right? You’ve got to compartmentalize,” Rossi said. “You’ve got to accept it and deal with that emotion after the race.”
Wickens was airlifted to a hospital with what IndyCar called “orthopedic injuries,” and the race was stopped for nearly two hours to repair 80 feet of fence, with at least one driver grumbling about safety.
Once the race resumed, Rossi got rolling again.
Rossi dominated throughout, leading 180 of 200 laps to earn his second straight victory and third of the season, slicing into Scott Dixon’s grip on the championship lead with three races left on the schedule.
Dixon finished third, and his points lead over Rossi dipped to just 29. Now neither can afford much of a stumble in the title hunt.
“We’ve been a bit blah. They’ve been excelling,” Dixon said
Rossi, the 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner, ended Will Power’s bid for three straight Pocono
victories. Power made a hard charge down the stretch and finished second to remain in the thick of the title hunt.
Thoughts about the championship battle, though, were overshadowed with worry regarding the 29-year-old Wickens, a driver on the rise in his first season with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
Wickens was attempting to pass Ryan Hunter-Reay when the two cars slightly touched just six laps into the race. That caused Hunter-Reay’s car to careen into the wall, and Wickens’ car was pulled along for the ride. Once Wickens’ car soared over Hunter-Reay’s and hit the fence, it spun around and around like a top. The fencing was shredded and Wickens’ car was reduced to just the tub, which came to a rest on the track along an interior wall.
Medical workers calmly attended to Wickens, and the Canadian driver was taken to an ambulance before he was transported to the helicopter.
The race resumed without another spate of aggressive driving — Graham Rahal had tangled with Spencer Pigot as the field was brought to green earlier in the afternoon — and ended without another caution.
Rossi’s thoughts were with Wickens.
“It’s tough to really celebrate after what happened,” he said.
Dixon echoed the thoughts of the rest of the paddock when he said IndyCar was a “close-knit family” and he was thinking of Wickens.
“That’s the worst thing you can see. He’s hurt,” Sebastien Bourdais said. “He’s awake and alert, and at least he’s alive.”
Bourdais, who finished fourth, raised concerns about the quality of the repairs and condition of the fence and did not want to get back in the car. Track president Ben May said “it may not be the prettiest job but it’s going to be safe.”
Bourdais called the repairs “pretty lousy.”
It was a chilling moment again at Pocono. Justin Wilson died from a head injury in 2015 when a piece of debris from a crashed car bounced off the track and hit his helmet.
Hunter-Reay, Pietro Fittipaldi, James Hinchcliffe and Takuma Sato were among the drivers collected in Sunday’s wreck. Hinchcliffe held his wrists as he slowly left the car. He was cleared and released from the medical center, then went to the hospital to visit his teammate.
Hinchcliffe survived his own life-threatening injury when a broken part from his car pierced an artery during a 2015 crash at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He’s close with Wickens — the two raced each other as youngsters in Toronto — and helped lure him to IndyCar this season after a successful career in Europe.
Wickens, sixth in the points standings, had reeled off five straight top-five finishes and matched a career-best second in the previous race.