Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward in the No.5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet was the pace-setter on Thursday as practice continued for the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge on May 26. O’Ward set a fastest speed of 228.861MPH and was the only driver to break into the 228MPH mark.
Speaking following the action, he said:
We got a really fat tow lap on the board, which was unexpected. “I’m happy with my car. We did race runs. We did qualifying runs. Obviously, it doesn’t necessarily translate perfectly to when the boosts come up just because the speed is so different. But tomorrow if it does rain out, at least we got a bit of a feeling of what the car is tending to want to do on a bit more trim level.
Scott McLaughlin backed up his fastest time on Wednesday with the second fastest speed on Thursday, a 227.317MPH, ending just ahead of championship leader Alex Palou in the No.10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing. Colton Herta was the fourth fastest for Andretti Global.
Defending Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden in the No.2 Shell Team Penske Chevrolet was fifth fastest with a 226.684MPH. It was a solid day for Marco Andretti, who set the sixth-fastest time of the day, just ahead of Linus Lundqvist. Lundqvist had a scary crash earlier in the day that resulted in a trip to the infield medical center. However, he was checked, cleared, and released.
Ed Carpenter Racing’s Ed Carpenter was eighth, just ahead of Will Power, while Scott Dixon rounded out the top ten. Conor Daly had a great session for Dreyer and Reinbold Racing with Cusick Motorsports, ending the day in 11th place despite something breaking on the car.
Speaking following the action, Daly said:
“There’s a few bits and bobs and I think they know definitely know what it is (referring to issues on his run that ended his day). That’s good. We can fix it. It could have been way worse, so pretty thankful for that not being way worse. Honestly, that run alone makes me feel a lot better because that was our first time actually going into qual trim and the car was super easy to drive. It was pretty decent in qual trim. We didn’t even have to change gears or anything in the course of the qual run. Just to have that speed in it that we had, I think we’re not upset about it, and overall in the race running, we’re okay. We want to win this race, so we need to fight with the Palous and the McLaughlins, and those guys look really good. I haven’t seen Colton (Herta) out there yet, but he looks good as well. We just need a couple more pieces, but obviously now we’re in qual mode. We’ll see what happens. We’re going to gain, we just need a few more things.”
Callum Ilott was the 12th fastest for Arrow McLaren, and speaking following his day of track action, the Englishman commented saying:
“That was a really good day for the team. The No. 6 NTT DATA Arrow McLaren Chevrolet team made some big improvements overnight and did a good job sorting everything out. We started the day with race runs, and the car continues to feel better and more comfortable. The afternoon was cut short a bit by weather, but I got a good feeling for our qualifying setup, as well. I think we’re in a good place going into tomorrow when everything gets turned up a bit. The team is working well together right now, and tomorrow we’ll see where we really stand.”
Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves was the 13th fastest for Meyer Shank Racing with a speed of 225.056MPH, completing 81 laps and speaking following the action he said:
I felt that we had a productive day. We tested a few things that were brand new for us, though we still have a little bit more to do. We did a few race simulations, now we’ll go analyze to see if the setup from yesterday or today is the best option for Monday’s race test – and tomorrow we’ll convert everything to qualifying.
Ryan Hunter-Reay in the No.23 DRR with Cusick Motorsports Chevrolet, was 14th and speaking following the action, he said:
“Weather was another issue (today), a little bit of a stop and start, but we got through some things we needed to. Found a comfort level that I needed in the race trim. We came back out for qual sims, but of course it rained. Looking forward to going fast and left tomorrow a whole lot tomorrow with the added boost. Added horsepower, higher speeds, good times.”
Marcus Armstrong was 15th just ahead of Romain Grosjean and Alexander Rossi. Speaking following his day in the No.7 VELO Arrow McLaren Chevrolet Rossi said:
“We had another very good day today, and I’m leaving the day feeling pretty strong in traffic. The No. 7 VELO Arrow McLaren Chevrolet is in a good window. I’m looking forward to turning up the boost tomorrow for Fast Friday and focusing on qualifying.”
Marcus Ericsson suffered a huge crash from Turn 4 and hit the wall several times before his No.28 Deleware Life Honda came to rest on pit road. Ericsson confirmed he was okay, but Andretti Global said they had to go to the spare tub for Fast Friday.
Felix Rosenqvist was 19th, while Kyle Kirkwood rounded out the top twenty. Rinus VeeKay was 21st, just ahead of Santino Ferrucci and two-time Indy 500 champion Takuma Sato.
Katherine Legge was 24th for Dale Coyne Racing, while Kyle Larson, who had an engine this morning, was 25th and speaking following the action he said:
“The day didn’t go as we hoped. When we wanted to do runs in a pack, there were no packs on the track. When we wanted to do single-car runs, cars would pull out in front of me. It was frustrating.”
Agustin Canapino was 26th just ahead of Graham Rahal while Kyffin Simpson was 28th just ahead of Tom Blomqvist was 29th just ahead of Christian Lundgaard and Pietro Fittipaldi and Christian Rasmussen while Nolan Siegel was 33rd. AJ Foyt Racing’s Sting Ray Robb was 34th and rounded out the order.