INDIANAPOLIS — Is history repeating itself? Takuma Sato was quickest on opening day of practice for next Sunday’s 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500 (11 a.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network). He was quickest on that day last year. Also a year ago, Sato led the way on Fast Friday. He did so again this time around too.
Chip Ganassi Racing has put all four cars in the Pole Shootout in each of the last two years. All four cars were in the top 11 of the four-lap average chart on Friday.
Ganassi went 1-2 in Wednesday as well as Thursday’s practice sessions and did so again on the four-lap average chart on Friday.
Also, 30 years ago, Bobby Rahal was wildly bumped from the 1993 Indy 500 field. Will his son be in 2023?
Graham Rahal was 23rd, 12th and 33rd on single lap speed and 31st on the four-lap average chart. If not Rahal, what if it’s one of his cars?
Katherine Legge was 31st, 33rd and 29th respectively on the speed charts. She was 28th on the four-lap average chart.
Christian Lundgaard was 32nd, 27th and 32nd across the three days. He was 30th on the four-lap average.
Jack Harvey was 28th, 21st and 31st this week and was 32nd on the four-lap average. He blew an engine with 10 minutes remaining in Friday’s practice too.
In the open test, RLL went 23rd (Rahal), 26th (Lundgaard), 28th (Harvey) and 31st (Katherine Legge). Last year, they had 2 of the bottom 3 qualifiers (Lundgaard 31st, Harvey 32nd) and earlier this season in Texas, they qualified 24th, 27th and 28th out of 28 cars.
The one chasing them right now is Callum Ilott. He’s had a disastrous Month of May. So bad, they had to change cars on Friday afternoon.
They were terrible in the test (33rd out of 33), slowest on Opening Day (34th out of 34), 32nd on Thursday and last again on Fast Friday. Ilott only turned 80 laps on Wednesday as he was battling the same issues that crept up during the test last month for which he only turned 31 total laps in. On Thursday, he was out there for 71 laps. On Friday, he only turned seven laps as they elected to finally change cars.
That’s 158 total laps this week and only 31 in the test. They’re WAY behind and struggling. He was 3 mph off from the next best. Still, with a new car with no laps prior to qualifying, can he bump his way into the show on Sunday four years after Kyle Kaiser did so in a blank white race car in taking out Fernando Alonso and McLaren?
Saturday will be opening day of Time Trials. All 34 cars will qualify with spots 13th-30th locked in. The top 12 at 5:50 p.m. ET will be locked in for Sunday’s Shootout. Spots 31-34 will also be in a Shootout, but for the final row.
That’s why you’ll see so much jockeying around on Friday to get into the Top 12 and away from 31st.
Then on Sunday, you’ll have the Top 12 Shootout (2 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network). That will be the 12 cars in order from slowest to fastest from Saturday qualifying to make the Fast Six.
After that session, you get the Last Chance qualifier at 4 p.m. ET on NBC. It’s 34th through 31st requalifying with one car, the slowest, missing the show.
After that, you’ll get the Fast Six Shootout among the top six qualifiers from the Top 12 Shootout to set the Top 2 Rows including the pole for next Sunday’s 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500.
Race Review Online 