INDIANAPOLIS — For the fourth time in five NTT INDYCAR SERIES practice sessions at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this month, Chip Ganassi Racing won the session. Takuma Sato (227.855 mph) was quickest on the annual Carb Day session in preparation for Sunday’s 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500 (11 a.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network).
Sato went first, seventh, first, third and first respectively in the sessions. For a driver that’s won two Indy 500’s for two different teams and each coming in three-year increments, watch out.
For Ganassi in general, they went 1-2 once again too. Ganassi cars were 1-2 on opening Day, 1-2 on Thursday, 1-2 on the four-lap average chart on Fast Friday, 2-3-4-13 on Monday and now 1-2 again on Carb Day.
Scott Dixon (227.285 mph) was second in his No. 9 Dallara-Honda. Dixon was second to Sato on opening day, second on Day 2, 10th on Fast Friday, second on Monday and now second on Carb Day.
Will Power (226.953 mph) was third quickest in his No. 12 Dallara-Chevrolet. Power was fastest on Monday’s practice and leads the Penske charge (12th place) on Sunday.
Pole sitter Alex Palou (226.945 mph) gave Ganassi three of the top four speeds again while Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood (226.872 mph) rounded out the top five in the session.
In the two-hour practice, we saw four stoppages. The first two early on for track inspections while the first incident happened at 12:04 p.m. ET when Katherine Legge stopped on the backstretch for a loose right rear wheel.
At 12:36 p.m. ET, Devlin DeFrancesco was slow on track with right front tire damage.
Tires are going to be the name of the game on Sunday because there’s a lot of degrading causing vibrations. The consensus that there’s going to be times when you can’t make it on a full stint without pitting early to get off those tires.
“Yeah, felt good out there,” Colton Herta said. “A little bit different weather conditions than Monday and probably a little bit different weather conditions than what we’ll see Sunday, so we have to take that into effect.
“But for right now was fairly happy with the car. I think we can make some minor tweaks to it to make it a little bit better, but I think we’re right on the ball with it so far.”
Josef Newgarden noted that this was a true race practice for them.
“We just tried to sort of practice race, literally,” he said. “Kind of seems self-explanatory, but I think everyone approaches this last session differently. We just try to do a dress rehearsal from our end and really get into the rhythm of what we’re going to do on Sunday, and I feel good about our car.
“I think the Shell car is quick. I think it feels comfortable. We got it really good at the end there. We’ve just got to be solid on race day as always. Can be no mistakes here, good execution. That’s what it’s going to take.”
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