Sage Karam was knocked out in opening lap of the 99th running of the Indianapolis 500 after contact with A.J. Foyt Racing’s Takuma Sato.
The Chip Ganassi Racing Rookie of the Year candidate was clearly upset with Sato and voiced his opinion of the accident.
“I don’t know what Sato’s doing. Kind of a bonehead move. He sees me and (Ryan) Hunter-Reay side by side and the first lap he’s trying to make it three-wide. I just don’t get it.
“The track’s clean right now, it’s swept so there’s no marbles up there and you can run high, but no reason to push a three-wide issue. I mean, just a very stupid move on his part,” said Karam.
“We had a good start, going through Turn 1 picked up about two spots already, was running side by side with Hunter-Reay, everything was cool. And with Sato, he had a big run, yeah, but he doesn’t need to go popping outside on lap one, Turn 1.
“It just doesn’t make sense. It ruins a lot of people’s races, you know.”
The 20-year-old from Nazareth, Pennsylvania started the race from 21st and was one of the drivers to watch after his performance in at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last year, where he started 31st but clawed his way to a ninth place finish en route to being the second-highest finishing rookie.
Karam has been struggling mightily this year on the road and street courses, but with ovals due up on the IndyCar calendar the next few races may play to the strengths of the series rookie.
