Simona de Silvestro was looking to get an extended run on the 2.5-mile over at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Tuesday afternoon. The weather was ideal, a cool 60 degrees, and de Silvestro was eager to get after on the track.
Down the straightaway just nine laps in, de Silvestro’s 29 car was already on fire as she hit an upshift on her Honda engine. Fortunately, she was able to slow the car to a stop in the corner grass and without banging it into the wall.
Early indications were that a fuel leak caused the fired.
Simona de Silvestro’s car brought in to the garages after it caught fire.
“It’s definitely unfortunate because the car is pretty burned down,” she said outside of her Andretti Autosport garage. “It’s really frustrating because it seems like fire just follows [me] all the time. Maybe this time it’s third times the charm.”
In 2011, ahead of her second Indianapolis 500 race, de Silvestro’s ride caught fire. With her hands burned pretty badly, the 2010 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year had them protected so much with extra layers that looked like Mickey Mouse mittens.
Yet again, de Silvestro and her team is dealing with a ride that was burned — ruined, probably — in a fire. Usually so bubbly and cheerful, de Silvestro — who is sometimes referred to as “The Swiss Miss” — did appear a bit shaken, but how could one not be?
“It’s frustrating for the guys also because now we’re starting a little bit from scratch,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll get everything together and be OK.”
Qualifying for the 99th running of the Indianapolis 500 is on Saturday and so her crew will have to hustle to give her a competitive ride before the weekend.
De Silvestro was out of the IndyCar series last year, instead trying her abilities at Formula One with Sauber. However, that wasn’t a successful venture and so she returned to IndyCar for 2015.
Andretti Autosport has put her in a ride, along with Marco Andretti, Carlos Munoz, Justin Wilson, and Ryan Hunter-Reay, last year’s champion. Should she qualify for this year’s race, which will be held on Sunday, May 24th, it would be her fifth time competing at the World’s Greatest Racecourse. (Her best finish, 14th, was in 2010.)
On Tuesday, the plan laid out by her team called for her to run in traffic, which was important because she didn’t participate in last year’s race. Her fastest lap Tuesday was 222.164 mph.
“Those are things that you really need to be doing to be really comfortable out there,” she said. “That’s really unfortunate.”