DETROIT — Felix Rosenqvist was taken to a Detroit hospital following a wall-smashing crash Saturday early in the IndyCar race on Belle Isle.
The throttle appeared to stick in Rosenqvist’s car as he entered the sixth turn at the Raceway at Belle Isle Park. With no way to stop or slow his car, the Swede slammed into a tire barrier with enough force to move the retaining wall.
Some of the tires even went over the wall and Rosenqvist’s car was stuck nose-up at a nearly 45-degree angle jammed into the scattered tire barrier. He seemed to struggle to catch his breath, and IndyCar’s safety team placed Rosenqvist in a neck brace while extricating him.
The race was red-flagged for the wall to be rebuilt — even Penske Corp. President Bud Denker was on the track re-stacking tires and inspecting the damaged wall — and Rosenqvist was at first taken to the track’s medical center.
“Felix was conscious the entire time, talking the entire time and he’s having some soreness,” said Dr. Geoffrey Billows, IndyCar’s director of medical services. “He had no loss of sensation anywhere or loss of function and we were able to get him out of the car.”
Billows said Rosenqvist was being transferred to a hospital for “enhanced imaging” but cited privacy laws in declining to reveal more. Billows added that IndyCar’s preliminary evaluation did not reveal any “muscular or skeletal damage.”
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