Scott McLaughlin in the No.3 Pennzoil Team Penske Chevrolet was the fastest driver in boost practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Thursday. The New Zealander who scored the NTT P1 Award of last season’s Indianapolis 500 set a fastest speed of 232.686MPH and speaking following the action he said:
We had a really good day, a good couple of days. “(I) felt like we got through a lot from a hybrid perspective.
“Then I felt like the morning qualifying session – the high-boost session – was a bit of a crapshoot. (There were a) couple yellows. When the track got better, it was a bit dirty from some of the shunts, as well. Then everyone was trying to cram a lot into 40 minutes. But overall, a really solid (car) balance to kick off the Month of May.”
Alex Palou who is leading the championship heading to Barber Motorsports Park next weekend was the fastest in race trim following on from his teammate Scott Dixon being the fastest on Wednesday. Speaking following his day in the car, Palou said:
You need to keep on always chasing it and trying to make it better. “Trying to make it more comfortable when running in traffic, trying to make it faster when you’re alone. That’s the car that gives me a chance (to win), for sure.”
Takuma Sato was second fastest in the boosted session but had a heavy impact during one of his runs sustaining heavy damage to his car.
(Video courtesy of IndyCar via YouTube.com)
Speaking following the action, Sato, who is a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner with Andretti in 2017 and Rahal in 2020 said:
“I lost it; I simply lost it. “It’s hard. My body is fine. It’s just the car … I lost the car. That’s heartbreaking.”
Will Power in the No.12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet was third fastest with a speed of 232.278MPH just ahead of Felix Rosenqvist and speaking following the action he said:
“Just did a couple of quali sims to get us prepared for the qualifying weekend in May. We got a good feel for it and are trying to work out how to best use the hybrid. We’ll go back and look at the data to see what the best strategy is.”
Alex Palou was fifth, just ahead of his teammate Scott Dixon while Kyle Kirkwood was seventh. Colton Herta was eighth just ahead of defending Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden who commented following the action saying:
“It was a pretty productive morning starting off day two at the open test. It’s been nice to have a high boost session. We don’t typically get this, and it’s interesting to have a simulation of what Fast Friday will be like. Just get an early touch on the car and what the high boost does. I felt pretty comfy and definitely felt some differences from last year to this year with the hybrid and the weight of the car. We’ve got something to digest as we come back to the “Month of May” and hopefully qualify on the front row again for Team Penske.”
Kyffin Simpson rounded out the top ten for Chip Ganassi Racing just ahead of Louis Foster and Marcus Ericsson. Sting Ray Robb was 13th fastest and speaking following the action he commented saying:
“IMS is a crazy track to drive an INDYCAR around. You’re either having the best time of your life, or you’re scared out of your mind. We had a little bit of everything today, which is great, but that also means we have some work to do. I’m really happy with our qualifying car. We had good speed in the car naturally, which is nice. In race trim, we have some work to do, but between the 77 and 76 we learned a lot. We’re going to come back for the “Month of May” a lot better off, which is good considering we’re already doing alright.”
Pato O’Ward was 14th for Arrow McLaren just ahead of Alexander Rossi and Graham Rahal. Marcus Armstrong was 17th for Meyer Shank Racing just ahead of Christian Rasmussen and Devlin DeFrancesco.
AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci was 20th and speaking following the action, he said:
“Obviously a very interesting day with the hybrid and the high boost. Feels pretty good, the cars are definitely quick. I don’t think were going to be as quick as we were the previous season just due to the weight of things, but overall very technical, very difficult as a driver to get all the systems right, but driving-wise, trying to find the balance with the car is also not the easiest thing, but overall pretty happy with it.”
Conor Daly was 21st just ahead of Christian Lundgaard and Helio Castroneves while Rinus VeeKay was 24th for Dale Coyne Racing. Robert Schwartzman was 25th and speaking following the test he said:
“For me, it was the first time driving at Indy and it was an awesome experience, I really liked it. We accomplished the full programme we had, and overall, we did a decent job. We also focused on learning how to drive in traffic and in battle situations, which are quite an important aspect of the race. We need to work on the car because it feels quite difficult to drive, especially compared to the most experienced teams. Overall, it was a good starting point and a really fun experience, driving so fast. Now we need to focus on Barber to keep improving and get ready to be back in Indy.”
David Malukas was 26th just ahead of Ryan Hunter-Reay Jacob Able and Jack Harvey. Ed Carpenter was 30th just ahead of Callum Ilott who commented saying:
We have good potential, although it’s not fully put together yet, but we made a couple of valuable discoveries at the end of the second day, and there were some positives on both sides of the stands. It’s nice to know that speed is there if we can unlock it. We have to look at things both in traffic and on our own but we have a lot of data to analyze in order to do some fine-tuning. Hopefully, we will have everything together when we come back in May.”
Marco Andretti was 32nd just ahead of Nolan Siegel and Kyle Larson who crashed during Friday’s action and speaking following the action, Larson said:
“I was starting my qualifying laps there and, just got really tight and just a bunch of understeer through Turn 1, and ran out of space off of Turn 1. I kind of fought the understeer feeling yesterday and, yeah, carry over to the day. So, honestly, though, I’m happy to crash my first IndyCar and, live through it. We’ll just work on it and try and get the balance more comfortable. I just didn’t quite feel like I had the feeling I needed yesterday, and then it really carried over today. I think when you’re going faster, you know, it really stood out. Just a bummer, but, also, you know, encouraging that it didn’t feel I know it wasn’t like a big hit or anything, but it didn’t feel anything different than what I was expecting.”