Andretti Autosport’s Devlin DeFrancesco went for a scary ride on Sunday at St. Petersburg when his No. 29 Honda got caught in the big Turn 3 crash that brought out a red flag on the opening lap of the new NTT IndyCar Series season.

The Italian-Canadian driver was hit with great force by A.J. Foyt Racing rookie Benjamin Pedersen in the No. 55 Chevy which shot his No. 29 car spinning into the air. Despite the ferocity of the impact, DeFrancesco was uninjured.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Not the way you want to start the season. We had concerns about Turn 3 and made IndyCar very aware of it. There have been multiple incidents there all weekend because it’s slippery. And that was the scenario that happened to me.

“I saw Helio (Castroneves) spinning in front of me and then I saw the No. 55 coming and I knew it was going to be a big one and braced up and got ready for it. It was a wild ride.”