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De Silvestro awaits medical check

Simona de Silvestro will find out later today if she can get medical clearance to return to the track for Indianapolis 500 practice and qualifying after her violent crash on Thursday

The Swiss driver appeared to suffer a mechanical failure on her HVM Dallara-Honda early in practice yesterday, with the car hitting the wall at Turn 3, getting airborne and eventually landing upside and on fire at Turn 4.

De Silvestro was able to get out of the car unaided and was treated at Indianapolis' Methodist Hospital for second-degree burns to her right hand and superficial burns to her left hand. She returned to the track later in the day and will have a meeting with medics this morning to decide whether she is ready to get back behind the wheel. Today sees the final day of practice before Saturday and Sunday's qualifying sessions.

HVM's primary car was destroyed in the crash, and though it has a back-up available, team boss Keith Wiggins admitted that the new machine would be a compromise.

"Yes, we can build a good car, but it probably won't be as good as the original car because that was built specifically for here," he said. "There are a lot of specialities about building a car for here, and we only had one of those built because that is all our resources will allow. So the question is will this car be as quick as the other one? That's the challenge."

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