Andretti sweeps day with Indy 500 pole and fastest in practice after

INDIANAPOLIS — It was a perfect Sunday for Andretti Autosport’s Marco Andretti. The third generation driver won the pole for next weeks 104th Running of the Indianapolis 500 (1 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network), then four hours later was the fastest man in the second to last practice session of the month.

It took a little over an hour before Andretti and the rest of the Fast Nine drivers were able to get their Dallara’s changed out from qualifying trim to race setups, but once they did, boy were they fast.

Andretti, turned in a lap of 224.122 mph in his No. 98 Honda in happy hour to yet again become the fastest driver in Indy. He’s bee in the top three in literally every practice session that he’s competed in this week with being second on opening day on Wednesday, third on Thursday and first on Fast Friday. Now, he’s quickest again.

Four time Indy 500 champion Helio Castroneves was P2 on Sunday, also setting his lap in the closing minutes of practice. The Brazilian driver circled the 2.5-mile track at a speed of 224.067 mph in his No. 3 Chevrolet.

Scott Dixon narrowly lost the pole to Andretti earlier and was third to him in the practice later. Dixon, spun and made light contact with the Turn 4 wall at 4:10 p.m. ET, by 5:06 p.m. ET, the repairs on his No. 9 Honda were done and he was back out on track. A few minutes later, he was on top of the speed chart with a speed of 223.686 mph. Like Andretti, Dixon has also been in the top three of every speed chart this week too.

Ryan Hunter-Reay (223.327 mph) was fourth while Santino Ferrucci (223.127 mph) rounded out the top five in the 2 1/2 hour practice.

We saw 2,443 laps turned in the session as despite the windy conditions, this was the most indicative in terms of timing of the race. The green flag is set to drop shortly after 2:30 p.m. ET next Sunday, so with Carb Day practice running from 11-1 p.m. ET on Friday, this was the last chance to run on the track at race time.

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