The 1996 Molson Indy Toronto was a CART race held on the street course at Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on July 14, 1996. The race was won by Adrian Fernandez, driving the #32 Lola/Honda for Tasman Motorsports, but was marred by an accident late in the race which resulted in the death of rookie driver Jeff Krosnoff.
Contents
Qualifying
Twenty-eight drivers qualified for the race. The front row consisted of polesitter Andre Ribeiro, driving the #31 Lola/Honda for Tasman Motorsports, and Alex Zanardi, driving the #4 Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing.
LineupMedia coverage
ABC carried the race in the United States, with Paul Page as the race announcer and former open-wheel series regular Danny Sullivan as the color man. Gary Gerould, Jerry Punch, and Jack Arute were the pit crew. In Europe, the race was carried over Eurosport which utilized ABC's feed.
Race recap
Although Ribeiro started on pole, Zanardi (who went on to win the series Rookie of the Year award) quickly passed him and led the first lap. He stayed in front until lap 37 when Greg Moore took the point, but regained the lead two laps later and held until lap 65. Bobby Rahal led lap 66 and Adrian Fernandez took the lead on lap 67. Moore got back in front on lap 68 and led for ten laps until Fernandez once again moved to the front on lap 78.
Fatal incident
On lap 92 of the scheduled 95-lap race, the accident that killed Krosnoff took place. Krosnoff, Ribeiro, and Stefan Johansson were all multiple laps down at this point in the race but were still jockeying for position. Entering turn three of the track, the lapped car of Johansson tried to pass Gil de Ferran. Krosnoff was running next to Johansson and Ribeiro was ahead of all three of those cars.
As Johansson made his turn to pass de Ferran, he clipped Krosnoff's car and sent it flying into the catch fencing lining the side of the course. Krosnoff's car's body disintegrated on impact and the cockpit of the car landed on the opposite side of the track. Krosnoff's car was so heavily damaged that the back portion of the car continued to move after the accident. Johansson came to rest in the runoff area directly across from turn three and Ribeiro hit Krosnoff's rear end as he tried to make the turn and followed Johansson into the runoff area. As the IndyCar safety crew tried to attend to the accident scene, which was littered with debris from Krosnoff's car, Eddie Lawson came barreling toward the scene unaware of what had just taken place. CART officials frantically waved to Lawson to tell him to slow down, which he did just before he reached the scene, and he was able to continue on through.
Shortly after this, CART officials threw a red flag along with the checkered flag, ending the race a few laps before its scheduled finish. Krosnoff was removed from the wreck and transported to Toronto's Western Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Dr. Steve Olvey of the CART series said that Krosnoff was killed on impact, and Dr. Hugh Scully of the race medical staff relayed word that a track marshal had also been killed when struck by Krosnoff's car before it reached the fence.
Aftermath
Krosnoff's death was the second in American open-wheel racing series in 1996, after Indy Racing League driver Scott Brayton was killed in practice for that year's Indianapolis 500. It was also the last death in what eventually became the Champ Car World Series until 1999- coincidentally, that year also featured two deaths as Gonzalo Rodriguez was killed in a practice crash at Laguna Seca and Greg Moore was killed during the Marlboro 500 at California Speedway.