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Damaged front wing takes Conway out of Indy 500

Mike Conway media

Mike Conway, A.J. Foyt Racing Honda

Mike Conway, A.J. Foyt Racing Honda

Eric Gilbert

DAMAGED FRONT WING BRINGS INDY 500 TO A PREMATURE END FOR CONWAY FOLLOWING DOMINANT DRIVE THROUGH THE FIELD TO P4

Mike Conway, A.J. Foyt Racing Honda
Mike Conway, A.J. Foyt Racing Honda

Photo by: Eric Gilbert

Monday 28th May 2012 - British racing driver Mike Conway’s Indy 500 was brought to a premature end after his damaged front wing caused the car to get loose and hit the barriers.

The AJ Foyt driver was having a very strong run and had moved up from a starting position of P29 to P4 by the time of the incident on lap 74.

When the race went green Conway got a solid start and made great progress in the opening stages of the race. On lap 15 he stopped for his first pit stop of the race and due to acombination of a perfect 7.2 second stop by the team and some textbook moves out on track, he was up to P15 by lap 20.

On lap 46 Conway pitted for the second time and continued to slice his way through the field. Four laps later he was running in P10 and challenging for the places ahead of him.

By the time it came to his third pit stop of the afternoon Conway was running strongly in P4. Unfortunately Conway picked up some damage to his front wing during the pit stop and, as he entered turn one, the speed of the car tore the front wing to the point that it failed. Conway did his best to gain control but was a passenger in his own car and spun in front of Power who hit him, launching the car into the wall between turns one and two before skidding to a stop.

Luckily, both Conway and Power escaped without injury from the accident and will be ready to test at the Milwaukee Mile this Tuesday.

“I made a mistake coming into the pits and caused some damage to my front wing which we didn’t realise was there until we had got back

out on track. Through turns three and four the car felt a little loose but my initial thoughts was that it was just down to tyre temperatures. However on the front straight when I went down into turn one I could see one of the endplates sticking up in the air. I knew the car wouldn’t be right turning in, so I tried to back out just going in but I knew Will was close behind me, so I didn’t want to back out too much. The car got very loose which I was able to correct but it broke loose again and I couldn’t catch it the second time and then I was just a passenger on board;” commented Mike Conway.

“It’s hugely disappointing as up until that point I was having a great race and had moved all the way up through the field from P29 to P4. We now look ahead to the next race which will be the Detroit Grand Prix next weekend;” continued Conway.

“We had a great race car and Mike was doing an awesome job,” said Team Director Larry Foyt. “He drove right up through the field which is hard to do here at Indianapolis. The crew did a great job in the pits, we picked up spots every time we stopped and everything was going well – we were in the top 10 and trying to get to the end. It’s a shame what happened in the pits. We couldn’t see any visible damage to the car when we sent Mike back out but the wing must have been weakened to the extent that it failed at speed. I’m just glad that both Mike and Will are ok.”

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