Simona de Silvestro sustained some burns but was otherwise unharmed after a scary wreck on Lap 99 of tonight’s Firestone 550K at Texas Motor Speedway.
The right side of De Silvestro’s No. 78 HVM Racing machine quickly became engulfed in flames after the crash and it took an uneasy amount of time for the Holmatro Safety Team to get her out of the burning car and douse the fire. Eventually, Versus cameras caught one of her arms bandaged after her release from TMS’ infield care center.
The situation caused widespread condemnation amongst the Twittersphere as IndyCar fans vented anger over, among other things, the crew’s apparent lack of working fire extinguishers to stop the blaze. Commentators on the TV broadcast appeared to key on De Silvestro’s head restraint system as a cause for the problems getting her out of her Stargate Worlds-backed entry.
The Indy Racing League tweeted this statement, seemingly in response to the discontent amongst the ‘tweeple’:
“Gang, the Holmatro Safety Team has a job much tougher than I. They do their job very well and they will learn from their mistakes.”
As for De Silvestro herself, she tweeted:
“Well first one was a big one I’m ok it just got a little hot!!!!”
Glad she still has a sense of humor after that, because it was pretty scary to watch. Pop Off Valve’s Tony Johns has a detailed account of the incident and he minces no words for the HST. He’s probably speaking for a lot of IndyCar fans right now.
