SATO UNDER FIRE FOR POCONO INDYCAR CRASH
EX-F1 driver is slammed by rivals after triggering opening lap pile-up at scene of Wickens’s horror smash
Takuma Sato came under huge fire from Indycar rivals for triggering a five-car pile-up at Pocono a year after the accident at the track that left Robert Wickens with devastating injuries.
Wickens is still undergoing intensive rehabilitation to try to regain mobility and resume his racing career following the crash 12 months ago in which he went flying into the Pocono oval’s debris fence.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver
Sato went three abreast with Andretti Autosport pair Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-reay on lap one of last weekend’s race, but appeared to come down the track and hit contact Rossi.
The ensuing violent crash eliminated all three, left Sato’s car upside down, and also collected James Hinchcliffe and Felix Rosenqvist – with the latter’s Ganassi car riding along the top of the outside wall and hitting the debris fence. Rosenqvist was checked in hospital afterwards but released unhurt.
“I can’t even begin to understand after last year how Takuma thinks any sort of driving like that is acceptable,” said Rossi. “To turn across two cars at that speed at that corner, in a 500-mile race, is disgraceful and upsetting. It might have cost me this championship.”
Hunter-reay, who Wickens had been trying to pass in the 2018 accident, agreed with Rossi that what happened last year made Sato’s move even harder to fathom.
“My view is that it was ridiculous,” said Hunter-reay. “I thank God everyone is alright. I thought we learned our lesson from last year.
Lap one of a 500-mile race...”
Sato apologised but argued he had “thought it was all clear” when he moved down the track. He also suggested that the way the ‘seams’ in the oval’s surface affected racing lines at the circuit had been a factor.
Hinchcliffe, Wickens’ Schmidt Peterson team-mate last year, said he had deliberately backed out of a similar situation to the one that led to the crash moments earlier.
“It’s a 500-mile race, I don’t know how many times we have to do this before people figure out that you can attack all you want, but it doesn’t give you a chance to win if you are in the fence,” he said.