Simona de Silvestro’s No. 29 TE Connectivity Andretti Autosport Honda-Dallara began smoking coming out of the backstretch before becoming fully engulfed in fire as she pulled the car off track. She exited the car unharmed and the fire was extinguished.
Honda reported that the root of the fire proved to be fuel leak from a defective refueling buckeye, leaking fuel following a pit stop and eventually catching fire on the exhaust headers.
It was later reported that the Andretti Autosport team was returning de Silvestro’s car to the team’s local shop for a complete teardown. It will be fully inspected and rebuilt and is not expected to be ready for practice tomorrow.