Defending champion Juan Pablo Montoya crashed on the 64th lap of Sunday's 100th running of the Indianapolis 500, ruining his chances of winning his third Indy 500.
The rear of Montoya’s car came loose and he hit the wall in Turn 2.
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Montoya said that the car just came around on him.
REPLAY: Juan Pablo Montoya makes contact with T2. He's been checked, cleared and released. #INDYCAR #Indy500 https://t.co/ZE9uCwS7bc
— IndyCar Series (@IndyCar) May 29, 2016
He was checked at the track medical center, cleared and released.
“Yeah, I am okay,” he said. “People do a lot of dumb things on a restart and we were just being careful, trying to make up some ground. The car was really good and it felt okay. I went into [Turn] 2 and got a big push and I got out of the gas and it just came around.”
Montoya, who has two wins in the famed race, managed to put a philosophical slant on his crash.
“It’s okay,” he said after the incident. “There is good and bad.”
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Montoya raced full time in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series from 2007-2013, winning two races. He moved back to open-wheel racing in 2014 — he had previously raced in both CART and Formula One — and finished second in the IndyCar Series standings last year. He won the Indy 500 last year for Roger Penske and in 2000 for Chip Ganassi.