Tagliani preparing for Monterrey

The Team Australia driver had been running fourth despite the water pump for his drink bottle and its mounting block rolling around in the footwell of his car.

However, when he tested the brakes on the straight in preparation for the corner, his nearest pursuer, PKV Racing's Oriol Servia, mistook this for Tagliani conceding the corner, and dived to the inside line into the Reliant Park circuit's tight Turn 1 and the pair collided.

"I had looked in my mirror and saw Oriol was quite a way back at the start of the straight," Tagliani recalled to autosport.com. "But because of this problem I was having to check the brakes three quarters of the way down the straight to make sure the brake pedal was clear of this obstruction. I didn't know what it was at the time.

"Anyway, going into the braking zone, he was still behind me, but as I got the car turned in, suddenly he was alongside me.

"It was unfortunate, because if I'd seen him coming, I'd have gone through the chicane to avoid him. And he'd have gone through the chicane because he had to: there was no way he was going to make that turn at the speed he was going!

"I think Oriol knew I was having a problem but when he caught me up, he rushed the pass because that was the only place he could get me.

"All the way round the rest of the lap, I was quicker than him - and as quick as anyone else except [Sebastien] Bourdais. I'd actually been planning to go and race the Forsythe cars in second and third on the next restart."

Remarkably, Tagliani's car appeared to have withstood the assault from the PKV Racing entry, but while Servia's car was removed under full-course yellow, it became apparent that in fact Tagliani's in-cockpit difficulties had just increased.

"When Servia hit me, the block that the water pump was mounted on somehow pinched the brake line so that it bled all the pressure to the fronts," explained Tagliani.

"I radioed to Rob [Edwards, Tagliani's race engineer] and we decided that at the restart we'd just keep going as quick as we could, but the important thing was to get to the finish, collect a bundle of points."

Alex never got to see the green flag. During the full course yellow, his car bombed headlong down an escape road into a tyre wall.

"The block had jammed between the brake and the throttle," he explains, "so when I pressed the brake pedal, I got front brakes but now also with the throttle wide open! By the time I cut the engine, I was in the tyres, it happened so fast. Stupid reason for a DNF, huh?"

Tagliani has had X-rays and an MRI scan and was expected to be passed fit by Dr Terry Trammell at Indy. "I think it's just a muscle issue," said Tagliani, "no vertebrae damage. Every hour that passes, the muscles relax and the pain goes away a bit more. I should be fine for Monterrey this weekend."

Alex has high hopes for the third round of the season. "If we can do as well as we did there last year and get another third, that will be great," he says, "and I think it's possible.

"Honestly, my car felt so good at Houston that it's a really frustrating that we lost all those points. Even if I hadn't managed to get past [Mario] Dominguez and just finished fourth, I'd be third in the championship now.

"That's what Team Australia deserve. That's the positive we can take from last weekend. We're honestly making real progress here this year."