James Hinchcliffe suffers leg injury in Indy 500 practice crash

IndyCar Series driver James Hinchcliffe suffered a leg injury after crashing during an Indianapolis 500 practice session Monday.

Hinchcliffe crashed heavily into the Turn 3 wall at Indianapolis Motor Speedway after his Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda appeared to suffer a mechanical failure. He reportedly was awake and alert when he was extracted from the wreckage and he was transported to the infield medical center. From there, he was taken to Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital.

According to the IndyCar Series, Hinchcliffe suffered an injury to his upper thigh and was undergoing surgery.

Hinchcliffe’s car briefly rolled over after the crash before turning back over onto its remaining wheels as it skidded to a stop. The remainder of the practice session was canceled as race officials investigated the cause of the crash.

Hinchcliffe had posted a lap speed of 221.323 mph on the lap prior to the crash.

Hinchcliffe’s incident is the fourth notable crash at the speedway in the run-up to Sunday’s Indy 500. On Sunday, IndyCar Series officials announced they would mandate changes to the cars in order to make them safer following three practice crashes that resulted in cars flipping.

The cars are running at their lower turbocharger, prequalifying boost levels and are using the same aerodynamic configurations for qualifying and the race. The mandated changes are expected to hold the cars well under 230 mph.

Helio Castroneves, Josef Newgarden and Ed Carpenter each walked away from crashes in recent days that involved their cars flipping after colliding with the wall.