INDIANAPOLIS — Alex Palou gave Chip Ganassi Racing their eighth career Indianapolis 500 pole including three straight when he went 234.217 mph on Pole Day on Sunday. Once the action is now behind us and race week comes up ahead, here are 10 things we learned from Indy 500 Time Trials.
Indy NEVER Disappoints
Indy, you’ve done it again. Practice week saw the biggest crowds in years. Time Trials weekend saw Indy be Indy. Callum Ilott didn’t have a car put together on Friday night. The second smallest team in Gasoline Alley worked overnight to do so and on Saturday, Ilott was among the top 30 qualifiers.
The smallest team didn’t even hit the track for the first time of their young business’ career five days ago. They too were among the fastest 30 qualifiers.
We witnessed the fastest female qualifier with Katherine Legge.
We saw the second fastest rookie in Benjamin Pedersen.
We saw the most qualifying attempts ever here (84).
That was just on Saturday.
On Sunday, Jack Harvey bumped Graham Rahal out of the field in the final seconds. Afterwards, we saw the fastest pole speed ever (234.217 mph), the fastest front row ever (234.180 mph), second closest margin between 1st and 2nd (.006 mph), third youngest front row.
This was the fastest field ever (232.184 mph).
.006 mph separated first from second and .007 mph separated 33rd from 34th…
Indy delivered.
Penske Keeps Falling Backwards
Roger Penske bought the Speedway in late 2019 and turned the ultimate flex up to a whole new level. See, his parking space is located just outside of the media center in the shadows of the pagoda. Everyone else’s space is known through initials. Mark Miles’ is MM. Doug Boles’ is DB. Penske’s? It’s 18. Not RP. The 18 stands for Indy 500 victories.
At the time, he had won two straight Indy 500’s. A third seemed likely in the very near future. But, as we sit here today, he’s 0-for-3 and surprisingly hasn’t even been close. He’s 0-for-4 in the GMR Grand Prix too.
Heading into last year’s Month of May, Team Penske was off to a successful start to the 2022 season and everyone was talking about them being the ones to win last year’s Indy 500. They had won each of the 1st 3 races, started on the front row in 4 of the 5 and have taken 6 of the 15 podiums spots available.
They were once again, nowhere to really be found in Indy.
That included another winless Month of May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
They failed to lead a single lap a year ago here and now have led a grand total of 19 over the last 3 years (600 laps). They finished 13th (Josef Newgarden), 15th (Will Power) and 29th (Scott McLaughlin).
Penske qualified 13-22-25-28 in 2020, finished 5-11-14-22. They’d lead a grand total of 16 laps that day. A year later, they’d qualify 17-21-26-32 and finish 3-12-20-30 with just 3 laps led all day.
This was going to be their year right? They looked vastly improved during the week of practice and had all three cars in the top 12 of the four-lap average report from Fast Friday including 3rd and 4th respectively.
However, they once again only got one car through to the Fast 12 Shootout and that’s Will Power taking the 12th and final spot. Scott McLaughlin (232.677 mph) starts in the Middle of Row 5 (14th) and Josef Newgarden (232.402 mph) will roll off in the Middle of Row 6 (17th).
McLaren meanwhile, put two of their three cars to the Shootout last year and finished 2-4-11. All three ahead of the top finishing Penske.
On Saturday, McLaren had all four cars in the Shootout while Penske has one. Has McLaren passed Penske in the pecking order among the Chevrolet camp?
“I think there’s no doubt that they’ve done a tremendous job,” Josef Newgarden told me. “They’ve just excelled. We fell short today. There’s no hiding it. We did not do a good enough job. I can’t speak highly enough about Chevrolet. I think they’ve been tremendous this whole season, particularly tremendous today.
“You can see that by evidence of everybody that was up there. We weren’t missing anything from that side. They’ve been a great partner for us.
“We seem to be able to figure out most situations, but for whatever reason this cruel mistress, she’s just tricking us. I don’t understand how so. I think all of us don’t fully understand it.
“You don’t stop working. I think for us, we’ve just got to continue to put in the work and not have an ego about it. We weren’t good enough, let’s figure out why. Indy is not easy. This is not an easy place to just succeed. I don’t care how many Indy 500s you have, what team you are, there are no guarantees when you show up here.
“We don’t have an ego about it. We have to work hard, come back, do a better job.”
With AJ Foyt Racing having both of their cars ahead of Penske too as well as another Ed Carpenter Racing entry in the Shootout and ahead of Penske, is Penske now the fourth best Chevrolet team at Indy?
Newgarden says that they’ve not left a single stone unturned in the fight back to the top at Indy.
“Look, there’s no place to hide,” he says. “We’re just not fast enough. We really weren’t. It’s unfortunate. I feel terrible for our team because I’m front and center of being able to witness the amount of effort that has gone into this place. It is just not from a shortage of effort.
“We’re obviously just missing something else. I don’t know how we’re missing it. We’ve worked hard, all of us collectively. We’ve tried to have no ego about it. It’s just not enough.
“I think we’re still short. Unfortunately the weird thing was I think we were more in the mix yesterday. I think the wind plays a big factor into that. Maybe we’re missing something in these type of conditions that we saw today.
“Any way you want to slice it, we just weren’t good enough. We’ve got to go back and really assess again. Unfortunately we’ve been doing that every single year here. What’s most important now is we’re going to focus on the race. I do believe with how tight the field is, as Tony talked about, there’s opportunity anywhere. If you qualify for the race, there’s opportunity anywhere to win this event. We have to put our focus to that now and be able to collect ourselves after the 500 and see what we can do better. I have strong confidence we have great race cars and can be in the fight on Sunday.”
Newgarden has won everything but this race. The 26-race winner in INDYCAR competition is 0-for-11 in this race with just five total Top-10 finishes in it. 3 of those 5 top 10 results were in the top 5 however, but Newgarden has yet to drink the milk here.
Power is one that has won the race (2018).
Scott McLaughlin is the relative newbie. He’s only 0-for-2 here but is eyeing his first top 10 on the 2.5-mile oval. He was 10th in the test.
“There’s always room to grow,” McLaughlin said. “It’s been an up-and-down few years, but obviously last year was fantastic in terms of my development, and then this year having a win already before coming to Indy is a nice feeling.
“But as the guys have said, I think as a team, I think we’ve really worked together well between the three drivers, between the engineers, between everybody that’s behind the scenes and put in the hard work to make sure we get speed.
“But also, it’s not just here. It’s all the other tracks, as well. I think we’ve really worked together and the camaraderie in the team has been great.
“From a personal perspective, there’s always times where I can find a bit more of myself, and I’ll continue chipping away at that. New stuff will pop up every year, doesn’t matter if it’s third, fourth or the tenth year.
“I feel like I’m in a good place right now, feel comfortable in the car, feel comfortable here at this place, and hopefully that bodes well for the rest of the month.”
They come to the Indy 500 reeling off of a disappointing GMR Grand Prix which saw them qualify 12th, 13th and 16th and have just one car even finish in the top 10. That comes after winning 2 of the previous 3 races and having 2 of the 3 podium finishers in the race prior at Barber.
Where’s Andretti?
It was a disappointment for the Andretti Autosport cars on Saturday. They didn’t have a single driver in the Shootout and will only start 15th (Kyle Kirkwood), 19th (Romain Grosjean), 21st (Colton Herta), 24th (Marco Andretti) and 26th (Devlin DeFrancesco).
Marco Andretti calls is embarrassing to be this way for another year.
Andretti has been largely quiet all month so far. I feel like Colton Herta and Kyle Kirkwood flew under the radar, but they still weren’t high enough on the speed charts to merit anything more than a questionable status to win next Sunday’s race.
Ganassi Ones To Beat
Chip Ganassi Racing went 1-2 in the first two practice sessions of the week. They went 1-2 on the four-lap average chart on Friday and had all four of their cars in the top 11 on that metric. Marcus Ericsson was quickest in not only the single lap practice chart on Thursday, but the no tow report too. Afterwards, he said in his press conference that his car feels better now than it did last year when he won the race.
“I think last year we were super good all practice, the whole week as well,” said Ericsson. “I think we are as good this year for sure.
“I think the team has done a really good job of trying to improve the package that we already had last year very strong.
“I thought yesterday I was struggling a little bit in traffic. Today we made some changes that made me more happy with my race car. I was actually quite pleased mid afternoon when we started to change over to quallie trim. I definitely feel we’re in a very, very good spot.
“We feel strong. We feel better than last year, and last year we were pretty good.
“We feel better. We worked hard in the winter already to improve on a strong package. Testing is testing, it’s hard to make conclusions. But of course we feel we’re going to be fighting up front. From what we’ve seen so far, we should be up there.
“We don’t want to underestimate our competition because there’s a lot of good teams that work really hard to improve. We can’t underestimate that challenge going into this weekend and the next one.”
Ganassi put all four cars through to the Shootouts on Saturday and qualified on the pole (Alex Palou), sixth (Scott Dixon), eighth (Takuma Sato) and 10th (Marcus Ericsson).
Pato O’Ward said last weekend that he expected the Chip Ganassi Racing cars were going to be the ones that everyone was going to be chasing again.
“Obviously last year the Ganassi’s were the different benchmark. They’re the ones that we’re chasing,” said last year’s runner-up finisher, Pato O’Ward.
So far, he looks to be right.
The drivers have all made mention that the Ganassi camp seems untouchable right now, but a lot can still obviously change.
In 2020, they led 119 of 200 laps. In 2021, they had 4 of the top 9 starters including 2 more on the front row with leading 42 of 200 laps and having 3 finishers in the top 11 including a runner-up. They didn’t have a win in either race.
Last year, they led 163 of 200 laps (82%).
That’s 324 of 600 (54%) of the overall laps led in the Aeroscreen era and already this month leading the charge. However, with all those laps led, they do have just one win in this span.
Indianapolis is a hard place to win. It picks its winners. It’s why there’s no reason to give up and hand the Borg Warner over to Ganassi…yet.
A lot can happen over the course of a 500 mile race. A bad pit stop. A badly timed caution. A speeding penalty. You can be good for 199 laps, but not the one that matters.
Right now, Ganassi are the favorites, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much at this point either.
Palou THE Favorite
Alex Palou is looking for the cycle. He won the GMR Grand Prix. Eight days later, he won the pole for next Sunday’s 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500. Seven days after that, can he win the Greatest Spectacle in Racing?
Palou finished runner-up in 2021 and led 47 laps last year before getting caught coming to pit road just as a caution came out on Lap 69. He was dealt a drive-through penalty for taking emergency service in a closed pit. He restarted in the back and made it up to ninth.
Now, what can he do on the front row again after having a top eight finish in all five races run this season including four consecutive top fives.
Is This McLaren’s Year?
It’s no secret, if anyone is going to beat Chip Ganassi Racing this year, the top camp is Arrow McLaren Racing. Ganassi put all four cars in the Fast 12 Shootout. So did McLaren. Ganassi starts 1-6-8-10. McLaren rolls off 3-5-7-9.
That’s eight of the top 10.
McLaren has the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and now 5th place finishers from last year’s race.
“I think it’s still a pretty big day for us,” Rosenqvist said. “I mean, we’ve been good here the last couple years. Today to have all the cars in the top eight, in this competition, it’s really hard. We saw with Tony today, even if he’s doing a perfect job, still things that can outside factors that can play in, it can become really difficult in this field.
“Super proud of the whole team for executing. That last run we did was just phenomenal. Almost in a 234 average. That was pretty mind-blowing how we found so much speed. We weren’t super happy on our first run, so we had two or three reasons to think we were going to go quicker. We kind of put them all together, wow, what a run.
“Team Chevy as well, great job. Yeah, just a fun time to be in Arrow McLaren right now. Everything kind of resets for tomorrow, but we definitely feeling good right now.”
They also had all three of their full-time cars finish in the top five in the GMR Grand Prix too including a pair on the podium.
AJ Foyt Racing’s Resurgence
Arrow McLaren Racing had all four cars in the Fast 12 Shootout. Chip Ganassi Racing also had all four of their cars in it too. Ed Carpenter Racing is back in the Shootout for the 11th straight year. Team Penske has Will Power. The final two spots?
Both to AJ Foyt Racing.
Santino Ferrucci qualified late in the opening line on Saturday with a four-lap average of 233.147 mph. That was solidly in. So was rookie teammate Benjamin Pedersen who went 232.739 mph as the 11th qualifier of the day. That stood the test of time and advanced both to Sunday’s Shootout.
“Yeah, I think it’s a pretty impressive feat for the team,” Ferrucci said. “To see the 14 up the front, my teammate right there as well who went earlier in the day, it’s been pretty awesome. To see us up there is pretty sick, man.”
In Pedersen’s case, his time is the second fastest ever for a rookie here.
On Sunday, Ferrucci put down the second fastest time (233.911 mph) in the Fast 12 Shootout. Pedersen was 232.671 mph which was good enough for 11th. Ferrucci would go 233.661 mph as the second to last qualifier in the Fast Six to qualify on the Inside of Row 2 in fourth.
As a result, Foyt cars remarkably outqualified all three Penske’s this weekend. The Foyt cars start P4-P11 while Penske will be P12-P14-P17.
“We fell short today,” Josef Newgarden told me yesterday. “There’s no hiding it. We did not do a good enough job. I can’t speak highly enough about Chevrolet. I think they’ve been tremendous this whole season, particularly tremendous today.
“You can see that by evidence of everybody that was up there. We weren’t missing anything from that side. They’ve been a great partner for us.
“We seem to be able to figure out most situations, but for whatever reason this cruel mistress, she’s just tricking us. I don’t understand how so. I think all of us don’t fully understand it.
“You don’t stop working. I think for us, we’ve just got to continue to put in the work and not have an ego about it. We weren’t good enough, let’s figure out why. Indy is not easy. This is not an easy place to just succeed. I don’t care how many Indy 500s you have, what team you are, there are no guarantees when you show up here.
“We don’t have an ego about it. We have to work hard, come back, do a better job.”
Newgarden says that they’ve not left a single stone unturned in the fight back to the top at Indy.
“Look, there’s no place to hide,” he says. “We’re just not fast enough. We really weren’t. It’s unfortunate. I feel terrible for our team because I’m front and center of being able to witness the amount of effort that has gone into this place. It is just not from a shortage of effort.
“We’re obviously just missing something else. I don’t know how we’re missing it. We’ve worked hard, all of us collectively. We’ve tried to have no ego about it. It’s just not enough.
“I think we’re still short. Unfortunately the weird thing was I think we were more in the mix yesterday. I think the wind plays a big factor into that. Maybe we’re missing something in these type of conditions that we saw today.
“Any way you want to slice it, we just weren’t good enough. We’ve got to go back and really assess again. Unfortunately we’ve been doing that every single year here. What’s most important now is we’re going to focus on the race. I do believe with how tight the field is, as Tony talked about, there’s opportunity anywhere. If you qualify for the race, there’s opportunity anywhere to win this event. We have to put our focus to that now and be able to collect ourselves after the 500 and see what we can do better. I have strong confidence we have great race cars and can be in the fight on Sunday.”
What’s shocking enough, for Ferrucci, it’s impressive that he was in the Shootout that in a sense for what he told me on Tuesday regarding him hating qualifying here.
“I’ve always hated qualifying,” Ferrucci admitted. “I was shaking after my first qualifying run. I was happy it was done. So I just I don’t know. It doesn’t matter me I’ve just I’ve never started well here. I’ve never qualified well here I’ve got a 23rd to 19th and a 15th in qualifying and all the top 10 finishes so yes, I would much rather start on the outside row five or six then have to manage being upfront. When we got up from the Dryer car, started 15th last year and we stayed up front all day till the very end, so it’s one of those things where we can definitely do it. My focus is always race car.
“I’m not afraid to pass people I’m not afraid to you know, be on the limits in the pits.”
Closing on race day is something he has almost always done. He went from 23rd to 7th as a rookie. A year later, he improved from 19th to 4th. In 2021, he qualified 23rd but finished sixth. Last year, he was running as high as fourth twice in the race and as late as Lap 158 but ended up 10th when it was all said and done.
What happens now that we know that he only has three cars in front of him on Sunday.
“I’m still never a fan of qualifying,” he admitted even after the fact that he’s in the Shootout. “I’m a racer through and through. Getting these four laps out of the way was amazing for us and the team to be as fast as we are. It’s incredible, a major feat. To have to go out and do it again tomorrow against once again the same super competitive top 12, obviously it’s something that I’m looking forward to as a team because it’s something new for everybody.
“Personally as a driver, yeah, it’s definitely something I’m happy to check off the list, happy I don’t have to pass as many cars come Sunday. But, yeah, I’m more looking forward to the race than anything else.”
What’s scary to the field is, Ferrucci admits that his actual “race” car is better than this qualifying setup.
“I actually feel a lot more comfortable in the race car than I have been in the qualifying car. To be in the Fast 12 and have a shot at pole tomorrow I think is huge.
“Our car definitely has some more in it. It’s getting really tight up top there. Inches are going to make the difference. I’m excited to see what we can do tomorrow.”
Ferrucci also notes this year he can get back to taking more risks as a full-time driver. Last year with DRR, it was just a one-race deal. He babied the car because of that. This year, this is his ride and his ride only. He’s going to go back to the old Ferrucci approach of being overly aggressive.
“You know, last year the team did really save me a bit,” he said. “I didn’t have the greatest restarts which is kind of unusual. I was definitely taking more of a step back being on a you know, just a one ride time to deal because I really needed to finish. So, this year you know I can go a little bit more out ahead of my skis per se and really be aggressive but also just being comfortable. So starting in the back for me people make mistakes trying to push the frontier early and I just you know I’m more of the last 75 laps kind of guy.”
That’s music to the ears of his boss, AJ Foyt.
Ferrucci is just a younger version of AJ Foyt. Brash. Doesn’t care what people think about him. Fast. Races anything. Makes everything that he does race in competitive. He’s raced sprints, he’s raced midgets, he’s raced an INDYCAR a NASCAR, you name it. He also likes to work on his own cars just as his new boss.
Foyt sees a lot of himself in this young racer too and now the 24-year-old is back in Indy Car with a potential to bring AJ Foyt Racing back from the ashes and into the national limelight again.
Ferrucci lives in Texas. That’s where Foyt lives. That’s where this 14 car resides. Ferrucci’s lucky number?
14.
Ferrucci’s favorite driver he idolized growing up?
Tony Stewart.
Now, he’s in the 14 car at Indy.
“Yeah, it’s cool. I mean, I idolized Tony (Stewart) growing up,” Ferrucci says of driving the 14 car here this month. AJ is a bit before my time so it’s kind of cool to see it come full circle and I’m really good buddies with Chase Briscoe who’s also in the 14 car in NASCAR. So for us, it’s kind of cool, at least for me. It’s really cool.
“I saw Tony, actually right after I had signed with AJ. And he was really happy and I was really happy . Yeah, it’s definitely a full circle aha moment for me in my lifetime but ya know, I’m it’s I definitely want to get that that sixth win for him and my first in this in this car be so freakin special.”
The last two years, he’s done so in a part-time role. Now, he’s racing all the races in a season again.
“It’s definitely less stressful,” Ferrucci told me on Tuesday morning of opening day for 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500 practice. “Put it this way, you know, the checks consistent.”
Ferrucci this year joins AJ Foyt Racing. That comes after running for Dale Coyne Racing in 2019, then shifting to the Coyne with Vasser Sullivan entry in 2020, then over to Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in their third car for 2021 and finally with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing last year. The last two years were one-off efforts. Ferrucci says that being with Foyt is more a work in progress feel in comparison to the past.
“It’s a lot of work,” he told me. “It’s a lot of work, you know, and I really like that, because, you know, going back with our RLL car, you know, the car was really good. All I really had to do every weekend was show up and finish in the top 10. Nothing to it. But here, you know, it’s continuous work, you know, trying to figure out where to go with the dampers, what to do with the car, how to, you know, roll everything into the weekend with the team because we’ve started every weekend, a couple of seconds off the pace, and we managed to get it within a couple of times. I mean, the GP was no different. We started in no man’s land and by the time we did race day, minus the hiccup we were running 13th from dead last so you know, we are finding the speed. We’re hoping that the GP for us was kind of our tipping point of you know rolling out of the trailer better a lot easier.”
ECR/Foyt’s Rebounds
This has been a dismal start to the season for Ed Carpenter Racing and AJ Foyt Racing. Them and Meyer Shank Racing are the only teams yet to lead a lap this season.
However, most of their drivers are fast on the Indy oval. Is this the reset that they need?
AJ Foyt Racing put both cars in the Shootout and starts 4th and 11th respectively.
For ECR, Rinus VeeKay is 18th in points. He’s finished 21st, 11th, 26th, 16th and 13th respectively. Conor Daly is 24th. He’s finished 14th, 20th, 23rd, 25th and 19th himself.
For the 11th straight year, Ed Carpenter Racing had a driver in the Pole Day Shootout. However, for just the second time since 2017, boss Ed Carpenter won’t be in it. Instead, the for the fourth straight year, it was Rinus VeeKay.
Without a teammate to utilize, VeeKay was left a still remarkable second in Sunday’s Fast Six Shootout which sees the Dutch driver now have three straight front row starting spots here.
“I think it definitely helped out like to have a teammate in there,” VeeKay told me when I asked if it was a detriment that he was one of just two drivers without a teammate in the Shootouts today. “It’s always nice to have someone with the same setup, same exact car, do a run before and making some little tweaks.
“But yeah, I wish Ed was in there and I could have battled with Ed or Conor. But I think for the underdog car in there, it was nice to have a good shot at it and almost hitting the bull’s eye.”
VeeKay lost the pole on the opening lap. Alex Palou went 235.131 mph on Lap 1. VeeKay was at 235.019 mph. On Lap 2, Palou went 234.399 mph. VeeKay was 234.403 mph. On Lap 3, VeeKay once again had the advantage 233.982 mph compared to 233.930 mph. Same for the fourth and final lap 233.444 vs. 234.217 mph.
It was Lap 1 that lost it.
“Yeah, it was very close. Wow, very happy, but also a bit bummed,” VeeKay said. “We had that shot, and I wish we could have done it. It would have been so great for the team. But also I’m bummed to be starting the Indy 500 second.
“Not bad, definitely, but yeah, I think it just has to sink in a little bit. What is in my head now is I lost.”
The loss is still better to be the first loser than where they’ve been this season prior.
There’s no doubt about it, the start to the 2023 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season hasn’t gone the way that fourth year driver Rinus VeeKay had expected it to. He sits mired back in 18th in points after five races on the heels of finishes of 21st, 11th, 26th, 16th and 13th respectively.
“Like a four out of 10, not happy,” VeeKay told me on Wednesday morning to grade the start of the season for him. “I’m happy with my performance, but we’re just not there as a team. We are just struggling a bit to keep up with the other guys.”
Now that he’s on the front row, how much does that change?
“Yeah, definitely,” he told me. “This is the best qualifying result for the team since I’ve joined, so definitely not bad, and yeah, just very, very happy for the team that we got this, and I think it definitely helps morale, not only for me but for all the three car crews.
“I will enjoy this one, and it’s my best starting position so far in the 500, which fourth, third, third and second, we all know what comes in my car number after second, and that’s a 1.”
VeeKay is most proud of the team that they were able to rebound from a mechanical failure in practice to salvage the engine enough to provide him with an opportunity to still win the pole hours later.
“Just very proud of the team, also. We had a tough morning, kind of went downhill for a bit, and we still — the team still made it happen,” he says. “The only thing I had to do was stay flat for four laps, and the ECR Bitnile crew gave me the best possible car for this moment.”
Row 10
The storylines of this row is insurmountable. Callum Ilott’s car wasn’t even put together 24 hours ago. RC Enerson and Able Motorsports weren’t even an NTT INDYCAR SERIES team five days ago. Katherine Legge is the only female qualifier in the field.
Thing about that.
Ilott was a rookie last year, but witnessed what Indy is all about as a sophomore this week. It’s been a miserable visit to Indianapolis for him with being terrible in the test back in April, slowest on Opening Day (34th out of 34), 32nd quickest on Thursday and last again on Fast Friday.
The same problems from April’s test followed his No. 77 Dallara-Chevrolet over to May. The car just wouldn’t go straight. It was sketchy. With it feeling this way on Friday, they decided enough was enough. Might as well change cars.
Some pondered if it was far too late. Why not swap them out earlier? Well, you can’t turn back time and if they went forward with the car that they had, they’d be the one looking on the outside in on Sunday night.
The team only turned 31 laps in the test, 80 laps on Opening Day, 71 laps on Thursday and seven laps on Friday. That’s 189 total laps and 3 mph from the next closest car.
“Last year was the first experience for me at the 500. There was no Bump Day. It was quite an easy process. Made life a lot more relaxing,” said Ilott.
“48 hours ago, I even put bets that I wasn’t going to make the race basically because you just knew it wasn’t going well. At that point then it becomes a pit of a panic, desperation. For sure for me, I was probably the first to be quite desperate as soon as I drove the car on Wednesday. But we had time to work with it.
“Coming into today, I was really confident. Honestly I just knew if we just got a clear couple of runs, the car had pace.”
They remarkably changed the car overnight and were ready for the morning practice session. The best four-lap average they could do was 224 mph.
Ilott went out early and wasn’t fast enough. He was only 227.720 mph on his first run. That was bumped. He went out again. They jumped nearly four mph over the course of four laps in qualifying with a four-lap average of 231.182 mph.
The speed put him 27th and he’d only lose one more spot the rest of the way and will start next Sunday’s 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500 in 28th.
“I don’t know where to start with that. It’s been a tough week, a tough month actually from the open test,” Ilott said. “We changed chassis middle of yesterday. I was kind of given an almost impossible task from what some people said. Just tried to keep the confidence high.
“The first run wasn’t great. I don’t think my engineers would even look at the video because they were scared to watch it. We just managed to turn the car around into something that was fast, managed to scrape four laps out of it.
“So yeah, super special. In some ways it’s kind of one of those never-give-up situations, prove people wrong on that side. At the end of the day kind of feels like a win even though you’re 27th or something. That’s life sometimes.”
For Enerson, they just stuck to their own pace all week. They didn’t take part in April’s open test, was 30th, 28th and 33rd on the speed charts this week and had 4-lap average from Friday which was good enough for 33rd. Enerson only had to qualify once on Saturday. He went 231.129 mph in his No. 50 Dallara-Chevrolet. He now knows that he’ll be starting on the Middle of Row 10 next Sunday.
For Legge, what an emotional roller coaster she was on. Her four-lap average of 231.070 mph seemed good early. Then drivers behind her started getting bumped one after another.
First Ilott (227.720), then Graham Rahal (228.526 mph), then Sting Ray Robb (229.955 mph), then Jack Harvey (230.098 mph), Helio Castroneves went faster, then Christian Lundgaard (230.522 mph) and finally David Malukas (230.779 mph) were all bumped out.
Lundgaard was back in but only at 230.859 mph. Legge was back to 29th. With 13 minutes left in the day, David Malukas bumped his way back in convincingly at 231.070 mph. Legge was down to the bump spot.
Rahal, Robb and Lundgaard each had another shot. Rahal was waved off. Robb was waved off. Lundgaard was the last driver as the gun went off after his opening lap. It wasn’t good enough. Second lap wasn’t either. Legge was safe.
For the first time since 2021 we have a female in the Indy 500. For the first time since 2013, Legge is in it.
RLL Can’t Figure Out Superspeedway’s
In April’s 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.
That’s why it shouldn’t be too surprising that 3 of the bottom 4 qualifiers for next Sunday’s race are in the RLL camp and the one going home is one of their cars.
Katherine Legge was 31st, 33rd and 29th respectively on the speed charts. She was 28th on the four-lap average chart. She starts 30th.
Christian Lundgaard was 32nd, 27th and 32nd across the three days. He was 30th on the four-lap average. He will come from 31st.
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. He starts last in 33rd.
Graham Rahal was 23rd, 12th and 33rd on single lap speed and 31st on the four-lap average chart. He was bumped out of Harvey in the final seconds on Sunday.
“I’m glad for Jack that for his guys and all kudos to those guys that got it together today and really happy Christian,” Bobby Rahal told a small group of reporters on pit road. “And so, you know, having been there before and you know Hinch was in 2018.
“Jack hasn’t had many things to cheer about this year, or last for that matter. So you know, I’m…I’m happy for Jack and I really, and yeah, that’s my big thing for him mentally that gets him going again. Naturally, I’m really disappointed in you know, for Graham, but what can you say?
“We weren’t fast enough and that’s what race is all about is being fast enough. What are you going to do? I feel bad for him. You know, I feel worse for the cars we gave our drivers and we’ve got to get our act in order.”
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