Foyt blames Castroneves for practice crash

A.J. Foyt IV hit the wall during the afternoon session of Friday practice for Sunday's opening round of the IRL IndyCar Series at Homestead in Florida after he and Castroneves got close in the third turn. Foyt wasn't hurt, and indicated his car would be fixed in time for Saturday's qualifying session

Mar 1, 2003, 1:27 PM

Foyt IV was having his first run in a Dallara chassis. His Foyt Enterprises team made a last-minute switch to the Italian firms' chassis after Foyt Iv wrecked his original Panoz G Force car in a pre-season test.

"I wasn't expecting him to dive under me like that - not in practice," Foyt said. "I moved up to give him room, or else we both would have crashed. It got in the marbles and there was no bringing it back down."

For his part, Castroneves blamed the crash on the high winds which affected practice. "It was a huge change in the wind," he said. "He was inside and trying to go high to let me go under. He just went a little off the line and there was no turning back."