Honda delivered the first punch in qualifying for the 108th Indianapolis 500, but it wasn’t enough to drop Chevrolet, which then posted the three fastest speeds on Saturday and nine of the best in the Fast 12 that will then compete for pole position on Sunday.
It was Team Penske who came out on top for Chevrolet with Will Power (233.758 mph), Scott McLaughlin (233.332 mph) and Josef Newgarden (233.293 mph) leading the field with Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi taking fourth place (233.069 mph) ahead of Honda’s leading representative in Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood (232.764 mph).
Arrow McLaren’s Kyle Larson was sixth (232.563 mph) and Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist was seventh with his Honda-powered car (232.547 mph) and Chevrolet’s Santino Ferrucci was eighth with his AJ Foyt Racing entry (232.496 mph). ). Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Takuma Sato was a major outlier for the Honda-powered team in ninth (232.473 mph), and the Fast 12 was finished with Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward (232.434 mph), a Rinus VeeKay loaded hard that overcame a morning. crash to jump into the pole group with the final run of the day in the Chevrolet-powered car (232.419 mph), and another pleasant surprise with Chevrolet’s Ryan Hunter-Reay at Dreyer & Reinbold Racing (232.385 mph).
“I wouldn’t have cut more than that,” Power said after using a low-downforce package to clear the rest of the field by a decent margin. “It’s difficult in turns 3 and 4. I thought we were perfect for this race. It was quite comfortable, but loose. We wanted to put a time on the board so we wouldn’t have to run again.
With qualifying starting at 11 a.m. ET, three qualifying attempts were completed with Kirkwood, McLaughlin and Kyffin Simpson before the first adversity of the day arose when VeeKay became the fourth driver to crash this week. The team sprang into action to prepare a backup car for VeeKay, which was seen and cleared by IndyCar Medical.
Romain Grosjean was next to race and was frustrated to post the slowest speed so far at 231.5 mph, a far cry from McLaughlin’s 233.3 mph. Larson was next and had to abandon his race when an unexpected power cut due to a fire in the turbo plenum interrupted his exit.
The next big move came with Power shooting in P1 with an average of 233.758 mph and he was immediately followed by teammate Newgarden who moved into P3 with a 233.293 to give Penske a 1-2-3 after eight qualification attempts.
Nolan Siegel, using a Dale Coyne backup car after suffering a big crash on Friday, ventured out and was slow as expected, running between 226-227 mph, which was well below Grosjean’s 231.5 mph.
Echoes of RLL’s slow cars of 2023 resurfaced when Christian Lundgaard took the team’s first run and was only faster than Siegel, averaging 231.465 mph. Marcus Ericsson, who crashed on Thursday and was forced to use a spare car, was even slower than Lundgaard with a performance of 230.603 mph.
The slow racing continued as Coyne’s Katherine Legge, the 17th driver to finish a race, clipped the Turn 4 wall on her final lap, kept her foot buried in the throttle and posted an average of 230.244 mph, giving Coyne the two lower speeds.
RLL’s fortunes did not improve with its second rider, Pietro Fittipaldi, whose average of 231.100 mph, was the fourth slowest of the 19 who completed their runs.
Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist, with ambient temperatures near 80 degrees F, was quick with an average of 232.547 mph to place fifth, second among the Hondas behind Kirkwood, who finished first in optimal conditions.
IndyCar then announced that Callum Ilott’s qualifying run had been canceled after the left rear wheel offset was found to be illegal during post-race technical inspection. Rule 14.14.6 has been violated.
2023 Indy 500 pole sitter Alex Palou produced a speed of 232.306 mph in his Ganassi car, which was good enough for seventh place at that point. RLL’s Sato, the fastest Honda on Friday’s non-trailer list, was fast again and placed ninth at 232.140 mph.
Ganassi’s Scott Dixon moved straight into qualifying after an engine change on his No. 9 Honda and recorded the 17th-fastest speed in the heat of the day. Foyt’s Sting Ray Robb ended up ninth of 11 in the No. 41 Chevrolet, and after the run the team found an incorrect setting on the car that would cause them to apply a correction and send it over late in the day, bringing him the 20th. Colton Herta did well to move to the fourth line.
Sato attempted to improve his speed just after 3:20 p.m. and he succeeded, moving up three positions to ninth place. VeeKay came out in his repaired No. 21 Chevrolet, and with no interruption in the action to complete practice laps, the ECR team decided to use a qualifying attempt to run it at a slower speed in order to confirm the handling of the car and the repaired items were ready. go hard in a third attempt.
VeeKay came away and got an uncomfortable 29th place. Rahal, who was left out of the top 30, made a second attempt but failed to make it out of the last-chance qualifying group for cars 31st and slower. Legge did the same with his No. 51 Coyne car and, like Rahal, was not fast enough to earn one of the locked top-30 spots.
In the qualifying line again and again for Graham Rahal, the nuances of the events of a year ago are repeated. Josh Tonnes/Lumen
RLL’s Lundgaard, 27th, was next to attempt to improve his speed, but he went 0.3 mph slower and maintained his faster average. O’Ward was back to improve on his 19th place finish and moved up to 10th. DRR’s Hunter-Reay was the driver who knocked the entire Ganassi team out of the fast 12, leaving Palou out of the mix, and Dixon – like many in the bottom half of the racers – tried to go faster but his car didn’t. didn’t have the performance. to offer.
Juncos Hollinger’s Agustin Canapino was close to breaking through the Fast 12, but had a plenum fire in the Chevrolet-powered car and remained in eighth place. Rahal, Legge, Siegel and Ericsson all did their best to avoid the LCQ, but they are ready to return – along with those from Fast 12 – to settle their affairs on Pole Day/Bump Day where one of the slowest four will be made for the event.
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