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Will Power’s morning got off to a bad start after a crash shortly after the start of second practice at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix.
The Australian, in his first weekend of racing with Andretti Global, was riding the 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary street circuit when he stalled in Turn 10 and hit the outside wall, causing significant damage to the right front of his No. 26 Honda. The incident raised the red flag just under three minutes into the session.
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“I just feel bad for the team,” Power said. “You just have to try to pull yourself together before qualifying.
“We actually have a lot of time, but missing this session was a big blow for us considering the session we had yesterday. Yes, it’s not an ideal start. Yes, we had a lot of issues yesterday that we hope are resolved, but now we won’t know until we can race.”
Power, a two-time winner in St. Petersburg, had to deal with blocking problems during Friday’s first practice session. Although wet conditions on Saturday morning left the track with a narrow dry line for the start, the 44-year-old Australian admitted it was a hold-up.
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“Yeah, it was just a closed session,” Power said. “You start it and then you have this wheel locked and you have to get off to unlock it. It was just poor.
“If it had happened a little bit earlier, I could have gone straight. But it actually happened, so the braking pressure was also very light. But like I said, there were tires that were locking up a lot yesterday. So, yeah, it’s not ideal.”
While qualifying will take place at 4:30 p.m. ET later today, after the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race, Power is unsure if a backup car will be needed.
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“I looked at it, yeah, it’s a tough thing to do,” said Power, a two-time IndyCar Series champion and winner of the 2018 Indianapolis 500.
“For qualifying, yes, no problem. But it would be great if we went out. It would still be a big problem for us just at the end of the session, but I doubt it.
“There’s a lot of damage, the floor, all that. So I think we need to fix that quickly. Yeah, we’ll see.”
The session’s other major crash involved the No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet of Christian Rasmussen. With just over eight minutes left before the split group portion of the session, he did a quarter spin in Turn 1 and hit the wall before coming to a stop in Turn 2. The impact was enough to damage the nose and cause him to fall out of the car.
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