Andretti quartet floored by second disastrous weekend

Following the Long Beach disaster, when two of the AA cars – Rossi’s and Hunter-Reay’s – looked likely to contend for victory and all four were halted by mechanical or electrical woes, tonight’s race promised less, as Honda’s aerokit continues to struggle for aero efficiency against the Chevrolet cars on short ovals.

However, Andretti was caught up in the first-lap crash triggered by Mikhail Aleshin losing control of his Schmidt Peterson-Honda, Sato and Rossi tagged the wall on cold tires following pitstops, and Hunter-Reay brushed the wall when he got wrong-footed while dueling with Scott Dixon’s Ganassi car.

The 2012 champion said: “It's very frustrating. I couldn't do anything with the car all day. I love short ovals and it's just really frustrating. The DHL car had a great start. We got by a bunch of guys and then we got a puncture [during Aleshin’s shunt].

“(Scott) Dixon was coming up behind me there, stuck his nose in. I was afraid I'd turn across, and I should've just turned across. I got out into the gray and two guys got by me.

“Then I got down into Turn 1 and the car wouldn't turn at all. I don't know. It was a really wild ride in that thing today, it was way too complicated behind the steering wheel."

Added Rossi: “Everything was fine, I came out of the pits on new tires, and everything was status quo until the weight went out on the wheel and the front grip went away. I brushed the wall and we came back into the pits to see what was going on and unfortunately couldn't fix it. We don't really know what happened. We were having a decent race until then, running consistently in the top 10, staying with the Ganassi cars.”

Sato made harder contact, understeering hard into the barrier on the exit of Turn 4.

“The car just wouldn't turn and I got wide in Turn 3. I went into the gray and never came back.”