INDIANAPOLIS — Qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 is always important. It’s the one race to where you do four laps in order to set your starting spot. While this years speeds are expected to be up over years past, it also will be even more dangerous too.

See, track position is going to be key for next Sunday’s 104th Running of the Indianapolis 500 (1 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network). The Aeroscreen is the reason for the higher speeds but also for the track position situation too.

Due to the added weight from the new safety device as well as the extra drag it creates too, the NTT INDYCAR Series officials didn’t want to go backwards in the speed department. So, they essentially doubled the boost levels for qualifying this year. In turn, the speeds are expected to rise as a result.

But, with faster speeds could produce more trouble. See, the flip side to the Aeroscreen is its making it harder to pass too.

It’s proving so far in practice to be hard to suck up to the car in front of you if you’re third on back. When you do, you tend to washout towards the wall. In turn, it makes next Sunday’s race as to what drivers are already describing it as a track position race — even more so than in years past. So I sought out the fastest drivers this week as well as recent race winners and got their thoughts on this subject. 

“I definitely won’t beat around the bush, they don’t race well,” said Conor Daly. “It’s tough. It’s hard to know if it’s the Aeroscreen that’s making it a little bit worse. Probably is. That’s the only difference and only variable.”

Last year’s winner Simon Pagenaud said even his car is having some problems closing up to cars in front but he’s not alone in that fact either. 

“The way you follow is not too different,” Pagenaud said. “Suffering with quite a bit of understeer in traffic. I think that’s the case from everybody from the onboard I’ve watched.

“It’s a little harder to close up for some reason. I don’t know if it’s because we have a little bit more drag on the cars due to the excess weight with the Aeroscreen. It will be what it will be. I think we should have a good race anyways. You can see some passing up front.

“Last year was the same. The first two guys were passing a lot. I do think track position is going to be very important. You’re going to want to be in the top five in the last 30 laps to have a chance. That’s 100% sure.”

Daly’s teammate in this race last year, Ryan Hunter-Reay, says that they expected it to be different than last year package but that’s because of the Aeroscreen too. 

“We expected it to be a different car,” said the 2014 Indy 500 champion. “It’s a big piece of equipment deflecting the air differently. It’s heavier. It’s making more disturbed air which is making for a bigger draft but again with less grip in the corners with less downforce it’s making it tough.

“Passes are tough to come by. The cars are really light in the corners because of that.”

Daly, said that part of the reason for this is due to the nature of the pandemic. Normally, we would have had a full day test at the end of April or early May, plus an extra day of on track activity in terms of practice during qualifying week too in order to get a better feel of some changes that could counter that. 

“It’s also we’re in a tough situation,” Daly continued. “We would have had a test day here before the Month of May. You would have had some time to evaluate the way things are in a normal circumstance. Unfortunately, we’re not. We’ve just had to get here and kind of roll with it. It is what it is. 

“It’s going to be strategic and you have to qualify well.”

So, that means qualifying is ever so important this weekend. You need that track position early.

“It’s going to be a track position race, for sure,” said 2016 winner Alexander Rossi. “It’s going to be really hard to pass and really hard to get runs, so I think qualifying is going to be extra important this year. I feel pretty good about that.”

2017 Indy 500 champion, Takuma Sato, agreed.

“Used to be if you on the top 10, top 15, you sort of happy,” he said. “You don’t want to take any risk any more because on race day, it’s far more important than qualifying. This year probably a little bit more shifting to the track position, which I think qualifying will be extremely important.”

Hunter-Reay said qualifying and track position are more so important this year than in years past because of this too. 

“More so than we’ve seen in years past,” Hunter-Reay said of track position being key for the ‘500 this year. “It does. Track position is key. Start further up front and better chance of winning.

“I think a lot of guys may be more aggressive and hungry on race day than we’ve seen. Pretty much what we’ve seen in practice is what we’re going to see on race day.”

Sato and other drivers note that with that being said, you’re going to take more risks in qualifying on Saturday to move up just one row.

“Everyone wants to have jumping one row for sure,” Sato continued. “But, yes, at the end of the day racecar is important. I think in the qualify if you have a chance, you should go for it.”

By doing that, crashes can occur. Qualifying in Indy you already are on the edge of a knife. One slip up can cause terrible damage. Now, you’re being forced to push it to the max because it can make or break your race next Sunday.