http://youtube.com/watch?v=
5hNZmxHcCq0[/youtube]
During this morning’s warmup for today’s Baltimore Grand Prix (2 pm ET, Versus), a brake failure going into Turn 1 caused Tony Kanaan to barrel over the right side of Helio Castroneves’ machine at full speed before landing and crashing into the tire barriers.
As you can see in the video above, Castroneves had moved to the outside of the right-hander at Turn 1 in order to negotiate it when Kanaan literally launches over Castroneves and, rather scarily, nearly into some track workers before landing and hitting the tires in the run-off area. All you can really do is thank God that this wasn’t any worse than it was and that both Brazilians are OK.
Kanaan’s quote says it all:
“I had no brakes,” he said. “Fortunately I ended up hitting Helio, and if it wasn’t for him, I would have been hurt. It was frightening. Going 190 mph and no brakes, is not fun. I was angry because of the brakes – it’s not a fun thing. Helio saved my life today. I was thanking him. A brake failure in a racecar is not a good thing.”
You can probably guess that both Kanaan and Castroneves will be starting in backup cars for today’s event. The warmup also featured an incident involving J.R. Hildebrand, Ana Beatriz, and James Jakes according to RACER Magazine. All drivers involved in that crack-up are OK.
Here is today’s starting grid for the event.
