Big stars, big trouble on Saturday at Barber Motorsports Park.

In the morning practice, Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin sailed through the Turn 1 gravel runoff, launched rear-first and slammed the fence above the protective tire barrier. Later in qualifying, former teammate Will Power, who now drives for Andretti Global, couldn’t stop his car in Turn 5, a helpless feeling as he sped toward the latched stacks of tires.

In both accidents, the impacts were fierce and the videos frightening. Both drivers escaped injury, although both situations likely will be painful to their results in Sunday’s Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix powered by AmFirst (1 p.m. ET, FOX, FOX One, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio powered by OnlyBulls).

Power will start 23rd in a 25-car field. McLaughlin won’t be that far back when the green flag waves. While he thought his primary car could win the NTT P1 Award as the fastest qualifier, the backup machine he had to qualify only could manage the 14th starting position (photo, above).

History suggests it will be difficult for either Power or McLaughlin to score their third win at the track. In 15 previous races, no NTT INDYCAR SERIES winner has started deeper than ninth.

The trend of front-runners winning applies to the past two-plus seasons, as well. Over 37 races, the only driver to win a race after starting outside the top 10 was Power in 2024 at Iowa Speedway. He started 22nd, but that was an oval with better passing opportunities. The last time a driver won a road course race after starting outside the top 10 was in 2023 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway when Scott Dixon won from the 15th position.

McLaughlin’s accident began with being a tad too far to the right approaching Turn 1. His right-side tires kicked up too much dirt, unsettling the No. 3 Odyssey Battery Team Penske Chevrolet. It spun and bounced through the gravel trap, where the rear of the car lifted 3-4 feet off the ground.

McLaughlin said he knew he “was done” long before the car reached the gravel trap.

“I dropped the right rear, sort of spun and just sort of braced myself a little bit,” the winner of the Barber races in 2023 and 2024 said. “I think (it looked) a lot worse than it felt.”

As McLaughlin did in his Turn 2 crash last year at Indy, he put his gloved hands at each side of his face to lessen the movement of his head. He blamed himself for the incident.

“It’s a mistake,” he said. “I have to be better.”

Power said his trouble was the result of rear brake failure approaching Turn 5, and he called the problem out to his crew on the radio as he reached the corner. From there, the winner of the 2011 and 2012 races was nothing more than a passenger.

It’s not been a good start to Power’s first year with Andretti Global. Five times now he has had contact, including two in Turn 10 in the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg weekend. He also was involved with Christian Rasmussen in the Good Ranchers 250 at Phoenix Raceway, and he hit Turn 9 in qualifying for the inaugural Java House Grand Prix of Arlington.

“We’ve definitely found the wall quite a few times this year already, very incredible,” the driver of the No. 26 TWG Honda said. “It’s how things go sometimes.

“We’ll look and see what happened and just fix it.”

This will be the worst of Power’s starts at the 17-turn, 2.3-mile Birmingham road course. His previous lowest position was 19th in 2022, but he charged forward and finished fourth. A year later, he came from 11th to finish third.

“We’ll find the problem; it’s no big deal,” he said. “It’s just a pity (it happened in qualifying). I think we’ve got a good car. But we can definitely win from there.”