Milka Duno became the second driver of the weekend to crash at Richmond International Raceway. The Venezuelan rookie was already struggling on the tricky three-quarter mile bullring when she pushed out of the groove and in to the marbles before hitting the turn four wall. Vitor Meira had crashed earlier when both his left and right side front suspensions collapsed as he braked for pit lane.

Duno's team members, including spotter and driver coach Pancho Carter, had been constantly imploring her to be more aggressive with her steering and to “pull the car down forcefully” when it started to push a little. The team believed the car had enough downforce to handle the turn in that manner, but she was instead trying a different style of letting the car “drift” more through the turn.

The contact came after Duno had run 31 laps in the second session and she was mired at the bottom of the speed chart. Duno was 1.1seconds off Marco Andretti's then session leading pace. Interestingly, both Kosuke Matsuura and Tomas Scheckter were also over a second back, though they appeared to be working on long runs in race trim.

At the time of her crash, Duno's team was working to get her up to speed in a more general sense. She had earlier been admonished by race control to avoid using the middle lane when being lapped. The tight confines of RIR are two lanes wide in the corners at best, so by using the middle, Duno was effectively blocking the track at a speed 20miles per hour off the pace.

After hitting in turn four, her car slid along the wall in to turn one before coming to a stop. Damage appeared to be limited to just the right front and right rear suspension.

She was uninjured in the crash and has been cleared to drive.

ORS / CAPSIS International