INDIANAPOLIS (WRTV) — ECR’s Alexander Rossi has been cleared to race following Monday’s Indy 500 practice crash.
Rossi announced the news on Thursday during Indy 500 Media Day.
Rossi was part of a crash during Monday’s practice session. He walked away from the incident, but “underwent successful outpatient procedures” on Monday evening “to repair minor injuries to a finger on his left hand and his right ankle.”
Rossi will have to be on crutches until race day, though, because it’s a weight-bearing injury.
“I am cleared to race, I will have to be on crutches because it’s a non-weight-bearing injury,” Rossi said. “Fortunately, to drive a race car, you do not need to bear weight. Range of motion is good, pain is minimal, swelling, as you can see, I fit into my race boot. Good to go.”
Rossi talked more about what Monday’s crash felt like.
“The speedway is a punishing place; it minimizes margins,” Rossi said. “We just were a little bit too far out of that window. That’s the way it goes around here sometimes, and unfortunately, obviously, to have that happen, in some ways incredibly fortunate that it happened on a Monday after qualifying, where the ultimate true car speed isn’t as important. Very fortunate it didn’t happen on Carb Day, so the team has had quite a bit of time.”
Rossi will need to drive his backup car for Sunday’s race, and he talked if there will be any new adjustments with driving a different car.
“This is the car we’ve used here at the speedway many times before, all through this month,” Rossi said. “If this was all new components and a different chassis and all that sort of thing, then maybe you’d start to question it a little bit, but this was truly going to be our race car until some other things shifted. This was built all offseason in preparation for this month to be my race car anyway.”
Rossi, the 2016 Indy 500 champion, will start 2nd in Sunday’s race.
This story will be updated.
