DETROIT — Robert Shwartzman experienced both an incredible high and a low point of his Indianapolis 500.
Two weeks ago, he topped the charts to win the pole for the NTT IndyCar Series’ crown jewel. The first rookie to do so since Teo Fabi in 1983, and the first INDYCAR pole for Prema Racing.
“That’s the most crazy thing that we’ve done,” he said. “It was just so happy and so excited. I mean, it’s a history. It’s awesome.”
Then came the race itself, where it all fell apart.
First was brake issues that his team couldn’t fix.
“So it was, it would be, you know, starting already the race with those brakes was already a game over,” he said. “Let’s call this way, because there was actual mechanical issue in them. So it’s very unfortunate.”
Then Shwartzman came into his pit stall too fast, hit some crew members, and damaged the front wing of his car.
“Obviously, I had no rear brakes anymore, coming with the old front tires,” he said. “Obviously, with the weight of the car, you just cannot stop. So I just barely touched the brakes, both front wheels and by inertia, which is going straight in the wall.”
Thankfully, nobody was seriously injured. Just some bruises and a toe injury to his fueler.
“I’m very happy, and luckily nobody got seriously injured, because that’s the most important thing,” he said. “And I’m happy that my first main impact was actually with the wall and not with someone’s legs. That was the main thing, because all of the damage they guys had, it was sort of a collateral. So they just had my side bolts and, you know, front wing. So there is just only one guy that had the injury to his toe, but all of the other guys just had bruises and, like, just some. Obviously, they need to also recover. But luckily, they’re all walking all fine and happy.”
Shwartzman visited his fueler, Spencer, in the hospital, and he was laughing about it.
“He’s such an awesome guy,” he said. “Is like, he was the one that had the engineer with the toe, and he was like, ‘I still fueled your car?’ Like the guy with a broken toe sort of still managed to fuel my car. And it’s just awesome to see the mentality of the guy. And he will recover. He’s going to be back where, you know, he’s going to take a bit of, couple of weeks to take back, and he’s also having a kid coming, so yeah, so he’s gonna be a dead and then when he’s gonna have all that, he’s gonna come back stronger, I’m sure, and we’re gonna get back to him.”
He finished the Indy 500 26th and left 23rd in points.
