Henna Venalainen

**Henna Venalainen** (1 April 1994 - 8 May 2016) was a Finnish professional racing driver, who was best known for her time in the Indycar World Championship, where she competed from 2012 until her death in 2016. Venalainen was a road and street course specialist during her time in the series, earning wins with Obsidian Racing Team until the team left the series at the end of 2015.

Venalainen was killed in a crash during the 2016 Indianapolis 500, an event that sparked international debate and conversation, in particular against Citadel Promotions, which owns the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and was the organizer of the series competing for the Indycar World Championship.

## Death

### Precursors

The 2016 Indianapolis 500, held on 8 May, was an event rife with controversy. It was the second Indianapolis 500 sanctioned and controlled by Citadel Promotions, who also owned the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. After Citadel had purchased the rights to the IndyCar World Series from sanctioning body NAMRA, the promotor began making wholesale changes, which were claimed to make the series more appealing to viewers. For the 2016 edition of the Indy 500, Citadel Promotion had initially decided to let the cars run 575 brake horsepower, an increase of around 50 brake horsepower from the 2014 edition, prior to Citadel taking over hosting duties. However, after qualifying, Citadel elected to change the power output, to the ire of engine manufacturers, and to the teams. On Tuesday, 3 May, Citadel sent an official document out increasing the power output for the race to 625 brake horsepower, without consulting with the engine suppliers, or any team mechanics on site. By the time the decision had been made, only two days of practice were remaining, the following day, 4 May, and Carb Day, 6 May. Both days were under threat of being rained out, and the Wednesday practice day was completely rained out without any cars taking to the track.

The engine suppliers involved with the series at the time; Audi, Chevrolet, and Honda, urged several meetings with Citadel executives to attempt to rein in control of the situation, being rebuffed on every occasion without being able to provide any information. The engine suppliers, while concerned with the increased speeds, were equally concerned that none of the engines would survive a 500 mile event at the determined power output. At Indianapolis, during a race, drivers will spend almost the entire race at full throttle, utilizing the maximum power output available. The automakers, and their racing development arms, were concerned that increased pressure, resulting in increased stress and temperatures, would cause catastrophic failures within 50 laps. On Thursday, 5 May, all three marques sent memos to their customer teams to not increase the turbo boost pressure.

While the engine suppliers worked on their end in near universal agreement, the drivers participating in the event were far less organized, or civil, with most of the 33 drivers split into two groups. Discussions among drivers led to a group of fourteen threatening to boycott the race entirely, led by Cristine Espinoza, while another contingency of drivers, led by Stephanie Porter-Kelley, argued to stay the course, with most of the drivers siding with Porter-Kelley citing their contracts with their teams, and the ballooned prize pool, which would see USD$6 million awarded to the race winner. Venalainen, along with some of her Cat Devil Racing teammates, sided with Porter-Kelley, while the team's #1 driver, Kunimitsu Kinoshita, and her step-sister, Sakura Ishibashi, sided with Espinoza. The 14 drivers holding out were forced to relent on their positions when Citadel Promotions began contacting teams to begin replacing the boycotting drivers. By the time 6 May began, all of the drivers that qualified the previous weekend were assembled and took part in the only practice session with the new horsepower distribution, against direct warnings of the engine suppliers, and FICA, the international sanctioning body who had become gravely concerned with the nature of how the event was beginning to unfold. After Carb Day practice, most of the drivers had expressed fear in how the race could play out, with several drivers, including Venalainen, expressing grave concerns with the now ill-equipped Firestone tires that were not tested to regularly corner at 240+ miles per hour.

### Race and accident

Venalainen qualified 28th for the 2016 Indianapolis 500, as part of a five car effort entered by Cat Devil Racing. Venalainen's team, as well as that of Kunimitsu Kinoshita, who started behind her in 29th, began working on a strategy during the race that would see them perform an overcut, or staying out longer than the expected pit stop window to try to shave an entire pit stop out of the race to gain an advantage. This was done out of concern for the tires, which teams had begun to abuse far worse than had been previously seen. Running at lower power saved fuel, and eased the stress on the tires on a day where tire temps would already be near impossible to manage.

The strategy had begun to work it's magic, with Venalainen finding herself in the race lead during the second round of pit stops. Most drivers were forced to pit between 30 to 35 laps, while Venalainen, and a couple others, were able to go 40+ laps before needing to visit pit lane. The large variance in strategies, as well as the speed differences, created an unforeseen safety hazard. Entering turn 3 on lap 68, Venalainen was attempting to let faster, and lapped cars, passed, when the Audi of Ryan Perlstein struck Venalainen's Honda. Venalainen's car entered a pivoted spin into the inside wall, hitting the unprotected concrete at 219 miles per hour. The velocity from the impact sent Venalainen's now eviserated chassis across the track towards the outside wall, bouncing off of the track surface on its way to the turn 4 catch fencing, where it tore up a 16 foot section of safety net fencing. Rebounding out of the fencing, Venalainen's car spun violently on one side, before coming to rest bordering the grass separating the track surface from the warm-up lane leading to pit lane, with Venalainen's head noticeably slumped in an unnatural position as other cars crashed attempting to avoid the stopped and capsized vehicle.

As Venalainen sat motionless in her car, safety crews were unable to move to immediately get to her. Ryan Perlstein's car, who'd also caught air and ripped through a section of catch fencing, was hit by other vehicles, and came to a stop in front of the closest emergency crew gap, preventing them from entering the track until Perlstein had been taken care of. The next closest emergency crew was located before turn 3, and were not allowed to move until after the last car had passed to start catching up to the safety car queue. Television producers, aware of the physical signs Venalainen was showing, directed cameras away from her area on track, and focused on the stricken cars of Sakura Ishibashi, and Pedro Harsk, who were now blocking the pit entryway. Ishibashi, in her first career start, had extracted herself after suffering a broken left wrist in the crash, and began walking towards Venalainen's car before being caught dropping to her knees after seeing Venalainen still sitting in her vehicle. The first emergency worker got to Venalainen's car a full three minutes after the crash began.

The race was immediately red flagged, with the field stopped on the backstretch before turn 3, where the drivers couldn't see the efforts beginning to extract Venalainen, and Perlstein from their cars. The race stayed under red flag for over an hour. Drivers were not permitted to exit their vehicles until Venalainen had been extracted from her car, and loaded into an ambulance to head towards Methodist Hospital, and were not told of Venalainen's passing until after the race had been completed, over three hours after the fact. Venalainen's Cat Devil Racing teammate, Steven Gnash, won his first and only world championship race by winning the event, and would later retire completely from motor racing, citing the accident as the only reason, but "enough of a reason to stop doing anything".

### Aftermath

Venalainen was pronounced dead at the track, with series doctor Darren Castillo signing off on the declaration at 12:43 p.m. local time, after her body had been loaded into the ambulance. Despite instructions not to, her close friend, and teammate, Sakura Ishibashi, rode in the same ambulance, needing treatment for fractures in her left wrist which required surgical correction. The autopsy report detailed her cause of death, when it was released publicly as part of the crash investigation organized and maintained by FICA. Venalainen had suffered lacerations across her neck and shoulders from the catch fencing materials, in addition to severe blunt force trauma to the head. Both instances of injury were described as being "immediately fatal" independently of the other. Additionally, Venalainen had suffered compound fractures in both her arms, which the report detailed as having come from her arms being flailed around as the car spun and flipped after the initial collision with the inside wall. Seven ribs were broken in the accident, with two puncturing her right lung. Her left ankle had seen all of its ligaments torn completely, and her right leg saw fractures from her lower tibia, up to her hip joint.

FICA solely blamed the actions taken by Citadel Promotions as leading into the accident, which Citadel Promotions fiercely denied in letters to media after the report had been released in October, 2016. FICA reported the company's initial refusal to let FICA's investigation team look over any of the wreckage, and alleged that Citadel had ordered certain telemetry be deleted from Venalainen's vehicle. In January, 2017, an anonymous source released audio recordings from the race into the public domain, including that of Venalainen's, and Perlstein's, recordings Citadel had claimed were unavailable after the crash occurred. The recording from Venalainen's perspective of the event included the aftermath, where emergency workers could be overheard showing immediate disgust and sympathy for Venalainen.

Venalainen's family filed a wrongful death suit in the United States, as well as in France, the headquarters for FICA, against Citadel Promotions, and Cat Devil Racing, with the family blaming the team for forcing the drivers to continue with the race. After proving that they had not forced Venalainen, or any of its drivers into participating, Cat Devil Racing was dropped from the lawsuit, and helped establish the Henna Venalainen Foundation, a charity in support of supporting children with disabilities receive support. Venalainen's younger sister, Mila, lived with cystic fibrosis, and passed away in 2021. In March, 2018, the family of Henna Venalainen won the lawsuit, and were awarded USD$149.6 million for wrongful death, damages, neglect of responsibilities, and pain and suffering, from Citadel Promotion. The loss of the lawsuit forced Citadel Promotions to sell its rights to the Indycar World Championship, while retaining the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and its other venues.