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IndyCar driver Romain Grosjean couldn’t quite believe his luck after his hopes of winning a sizeable sum in the $1 Million Challenge were dashed just seconds into the race.
The Juncos Hollinger Racing driver was hit by six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon in the turn one braking zone at the Thermal Club, sending the former F1 driver into a spin.
Grosjean slid out of control before sliding into the side of Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay.
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The Frenchman was irate, yelling at an official before taking aim at Dixon for the contact.
“I got hit really, really badly at the back and then the car spun,” said Grosjean.
“Who’s going to pay for the damage? You know, we come here with no points on the line, we do nothing wrong, and the car is completely smashed.
“Whatever. It’s not what I signed up to IndyCar for.”
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Dixon, who took ownership of the incident, was penalised for the crash.
That ended his hopes of advancing to the $1 million race.
“There was a lot going on, that’s for sure,” said Dixon.
“I think initially (Colton) Herta and I got into it. Then Grosjean went to the left. I thought he was going all the way to the left, which was going to open up the middle, then all of a sudden he started to fade back to the right.
“Everyone stopped so early, a lot earlier than I thought we were going to, especially with the massive headwind that we’ve got going on.
“Obviously I don’t want to collect anyone and apologise to anyone who was collected in that incident. It was all going on in a short space of time. Sometimes that happens, unfortunately.”
Will Power was a victim in the melee, forced to take evasive action.
He started the race in sixth but fell to the tail of the field and was unable to work his way back into a transfer spot.
“That’s nasty,” said Power, watching the replay of the crash.
“It’s actually a nasty situation there when you’ve got that kerb. Grosjean coming through the dirt. Poor old Rinus. Boom.
“I saw it coming when I was at the kerb. I was like ‘Yep, we’re good! Oh, no we’re not’. It was very close.”
Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist won the first heat ahead of Scott McLaughlin and his Team Penske stablemate Josef Newgarden.
Despite copping a whack in the crash, Christian Lundgaard made it to the chequered flag in fourth for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
Grosjean’s teammate Agustin Canapino was fifth and Colton Herta sixth in the last transfer spot for Andretti Global.
The second heat race was dominated by Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou.
There was an entertaining battle for the final transfer spot with three McLarens trying to beat Meyer Shank Racing’s Tom Blomqvist.
Alexander Rossi ultimately took sixth after fending off his teammates Pato O’Ward and Callum Ilott.
Palou was untroubled at the head of the field, leading teammate Marcus Armstrong, Graham Rahal, Linus Lundqvist, and Pietro Fittipaldi.
The headline 20-lap race was relatively uneventful outside of Rossi and Herta opting for a rogue strategy.
The pair both fell to the back of the pack and cruised around at a pedestrian pace to conserve tyre life before the half-time break.
On the race restart, they surged forward with Herta rising to fourth at the chequered flag.
Palou controlled the contest and stormed to victory ahead of McLaughlin and Rosenqvist.
With victory, Palou earned $766,000 ($500,000 USD) for his team while McLaughlin came home with $536,570 ($350,000 USD) and Rosenqvist $383,250 ($250,000 USD).
Asked what he’d do with the money, Palou replied “I need to buy a lot of diapers and pyjamas, so probably I will do that and probably do a small party with the boys.”
Herta said he was optimistic his strategy would work.
“Inside the car it sucked and I’m sure for people watching they wanted to see both cars going at it, but you got that in the last half,” said Herta.
“I think our strategy worked. We were talking about it, on pure pace maybe we can move up six spots at most. If we get a little lucky and other cars have some problems, but if we save tyres we might be able to get a little bit more.
“That’s what we went for and obviously the tyre advantage was pretty big so we were able to pick off everybody on the way up there.”
IndyCar returns on April 22 with the Grand Prix of Long Beach with coverage live, ad-free, and exclusively on Stan Sport.
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