Aric Almirola was involved in a single car accident on lap 302 at Dover when he cut a tire and made hard contact with the outside wall, damaging the car beyond repair.
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield/Weis Markets Ford Mustang (Involved in Accident on Lap 302)
“I’m OK. That was another hard hit. My body is hurting. It doesn’t want to take any more hard hits like that. It’s just such a trying year. I don’t know what exactly happened. I think something in the suspension broke. It wasn’t like a right-front went down. It wasn’t like all of a sudden. A couple laps before that I felt like I was laying on the splitter pretty hard, which is unusual that far into a run, and I kind of mentioned it on the radio and then went down into turn three, the worst possible place — well, there’s no good place at Dover to have a suspension failure or a tire go down — but our guys deserve so much better. Our partners, Smithfield, Ford, everybody, Go Bowling, Pit Boss Grills, everybody that helps us deserves so much better. We’re so much more capable, but God is really testing us this year.”
— Ford Performance —
Almirola was evaluated and released from the infield care center.
If Aric Almirola didn’t have bad luck, he wouldn’t have much luck at all so far this year. 😔
A promising day ends early for the No. 10 team. (Via @NASCAR) pic.twitter.com/rAeRYOxMNF
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) May 16, 2021