Painful Hands Won’t Slow Down De Silvestro In Indy 500

INDIANAPOLIS – Simona De Silvestro plans to use the full hour of Friday’s final Indianapolis 500 practice to finetune her car and see how her burned hands react to the pressure of racing.

The Swiss driver hopes adrenaline will help her cope with the painful injuries sustained in a practice crash last week. Two days later, De Silvestro made a gutsy Pole Day qualifying run that put her safely on the starting grid. She’ll start 23rd, the middle of row 8.

To numb the pain, doctors have used “freeze” treatments and provided special gloves to help her race.

If she can’t make it the full 500 miles, HVM Racing says it has no plans to replace De Silvestro with a backup driver.