Herta upside down in massive Indy 500 qualifying crash

Colton Herta has had a massive crash in qualifying for the 2025 Indianapolis 500, losing the rear of the car at Turn 1 and scraping upside down along the track.

Herta has had a strong practice week and expected to be in the fight for pole and the race win at the event, but on only his first lap the rear of his car let go really late in the corner and he was powerless to avoid the enormous crash.

You could hear the roll hoop above his head scraping along the ground before the car came to a halt. It was righted by the AMR Safety Team and Herta then climbed out and walked to the medical car relatively unassisted with marshals holding his arms.

Qualifying was delayed for around 30 minutes to clean the track and remove the debris.

"I’m fine," Herta told Fox. "Luckily nowadays these crashes look scarier than they feel. [Which is] not to say that one felt good.

"The team’s going to be hard at work now trying to get the backup car ready, it’s going to be probably impossible to get out today.

"Terrible day for this to happen. It was kind of, there were no real signs leading to it. We were super happy with the car this morning, go out and just loose, couldn’t even get lap one done.

"It sucks, but I’m good, keep going."

While it would have felt different onboard, the incident was eerily similar visually to a crash Herta had in final practice for the 2022 event, which you can watch above.

Earlier in the day, Meyer Shank's Marcus Armstrong crashed in morning practice and wasn't cleared to get back into the car until around 1320 local time.

Fast-moving winds, which can also change direction, can catch out a driver at any time at the high speeds of over 230mph being reached in qualifying.

Before Herta's crash, Pato O’Ward led the times with the shock being Prema's Robert Shwartzman, who managed laps in the 233mph average range - which O’Ward couldn’t match as peaks, but the McLaren driver lost less time over his full run.

Graham Rahal, bumped from the event in 2023, is the early struggler - lamenting a lack of grip as he did in practice.

Four-time winner Helio Castroneves failed technical inspection so has had to forfeit his 20th place in the order to get out on track. Josef Newgarden, due to start 33rd of 34 cars, pulled out of line voluntarily.

That's likely as to not sit in the sun on pitlane all day and to be able to make significant set-up changes later in the day if required, which isn't allowed in the line.

Times before Herta's crash

Pato O’Ward 232.820mph (2m34.6257s)
Scott Dixon 232.659mph (2m34.7327s)
Robert Shwartzman 232.584mph (2m34.7828s)
Felix Rosenqvist 232.449mph (2m34.8726s)
Marcus Ericsson 232.132mph (2m35.0843s)
Kyffin Simpson 231.643mph (2m35.4127s)
Conor Daly 231.596mph (2m35.4428s)
Alexander Rossi 231.510mph (2m35.5006s)
Nolan Siegel 230.571mph (2m36.1342s)
Jack Harvey 230.348s (2m36.2853s)
Christian Lundgaard 230.304mph (2m36.3154s)
Ryan Hunter-Reay 230.338mph (2m36.3614s)
Graham Rahal 228.686mph (2m37.4210s)