Rossi crashes hard in Indy 500 practice; O'Ward and Grosjean also involved

Alexander Rossi spun and backed into the Turn 2 exit wall on Monday afternoon during the two-hour Indianapolis 500 practice held ahead of Sunday’s race.

The impact set off a chain of events that damaged three cars in total and served as the first crashes of the event after six straight days of clean running.

Rossi, who qualified second in the No. 20 ECR Chevy, got partially airborne before the car returned to the racing surface and hit the spinning car of Pato O’Ward, who'd lost control while attempting to avoid the incident, and struck Rossi’s car with the rear of his No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevy.

Dale Coyne Racing’s Romain Grosjean spun and crashed as well while trying to steer clear of the accident.

O’Ward and Grosjean were seen and released by IndyCar Medical.

“I’m OK. I just feel bad for my car," said O'Ward. "Wrong place, wrong time. I’m glad Romain’s alright, Alex as well. Just sucks.”

At the time of filing, no official word had been provided by IndyCar about Rossi’s condition.

The status of the respective cars and the teams' ability to repair them or the need to move to backup cars will be known in the coming hours.