Indianapolis 500 – 2020 – Wednesday Update #6 – post practice
The first driver on track for the 150-minute session to finish the day was Alexander Rossi. The 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner turned laps solo but had to come in early when the cooling hose to his helmet came off. The Californian got out of the car and tried a different helmet and cooling hose.
With just over two hours left on the first day of Indianapolis 500 practice, veteran Tony Kanaan got into the No. 41 K-Line USA / A.J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet to get a feel for the set-up on rookie Dalton Kellett’s car. The Canadian turned a total of 81-laps during ROP, and his top lap speed was 215.852mph.
After getting up to speed, Kanaan turned laps of 218.319mph, 218.117mph, 218.306mph, and 217.780mph before handing the car back over to Kellett.
After getting out of the car, Kanaan spent time debriefing with Kellett, his driver coach and Indianapolis 500 veteran Darren Manning, his engineer Will Phillips, and strategist John Brunner.
Tony offered to get in the car, and after his laps told Kellett that the car was fine and that he needed to take his time getting up to speed.
At the same time that Kanaan was on track, the Team Penske duo of Power and Pagenaud were on the track running together.
With just under two hours remaining, the yellow flag came out for a track inspection. The green flag came back out nine-minutes later, and the track was quite a bit busier.
With a good tow, Marco Andretti went to the top of the timing screen for about 30-minutes. With 80-minutes remaining, James Hinchcliffe went quicker with a lap at 224.526 mph.
Kellett got back out on track and was able to get up to the same speed that Kanaan ran in that same car earlier during the session, and quickly passed the final 11-laps of his ROP.
When happy hour began at 4:30 pm, there were ten cars on the track, and the top five lap speeds were held by Hinchcliffe, Andretti, Dixon, Hunter-Reay, and Alonso.
With just over 45-minutes left in practice, the track was quiet for a few minutes.
The Ed Carpenter Racing threesome was the first team to head out on track together. They were quickly joined by fellow Team Chevy drivers from Team Penske and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.
After that run in traffic, Karam talked to Dylan Welch, telling the NBC Gold audience that it was a challenge in traffic, but that the car felt much better today than it did on the first day of practice last year. He said it appeared that everybody was dealing with the exact same thing – understeer in Turn 2 and Turn 4. He also mentioned that it was tough to pass when the tire life started to fall off. When he got out of the car, Karam had the 16th fastest lap.
With 40-minutes left in practice, 18 cars were on the track, and the track remained busy.
With 15 minutes left in the session, the No. 4 Tresiba / A.J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet of Charlie Kimball made a light brush of the concrete wall at turn-in for Turn 2. That got the car loose, but he was able to save the rear end.
Unlike many practice days, the final few minutes of practice was reasonably quiet.
As that session was ending, the No. 81 DragonSpeed USA Chevrolet of Ben Hanley was rolled out to pit lane, and it was announced that they would get 30-minutes to complete at least his first portion of his refresher.
Final practice results
RANK | CAR NO. | DRIVER | TEAM | ENGINE | FAST SPEED | TOTAL LAPS |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 29 | James Hinchcliffe | Andretti Autosport | Honda | 224.526 | 80 |
2 | 98 | Marco Andretti | Andretti Herta with Marco & Curb-Agajanian | Honda | 224.345 | 96 |
3 | 9 | Scott Dixon | Chip Ganassi Racing | Honda | 224.047 | 61 |
4 | 28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | Andretti Autosport | Honda | 223.341 | 81 |
5 | 66 | Fernando Alonso | Arrow McLaren SP | Chevy | 223.238 | 29 |
6 | 1 | Josef Newgarden | Team Penske | Chevy | 223.188 | 82 |
7 | 60 | Jack Harvey | Meyer Shank Racing | Honda | 223.178 | 107 |
8 | 55 | Alex Palou | Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh | Honda | 223.128 | 60 |
9 | 47 | Conor Daly | Ed Carpenter Racing | Chevy | 223.020 | 80 |
10 | 3 | Helio Castroneves | Team Penske | Chevy | 222.929 | 62 |
11 | 14 | Tony Kanaan | AJ Foyt Enterprises | Chevy | 222.873 | 58 |
12 | 22 | Simon Pagenaud | Team Penske | Chevy | 222.849 | 112 |
13 | 30 | Takuma Sato | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | Honda | 222.551 | 84 |
14 | 10 | Felix Rosenqvist | Chip Ganassi Racing | Honda | 222.541 | 89 |
15 | 4 | Charlie Kimball | AJ Foyt Enterprises | Chevy | 222.438 | 102 |
16 | 21 | Rinus VeeKay | Ed Carpenter Racing | Chevy | 222.061 | 76 |
17 | 24 | Sage Karam | Dreyer & Reinbold Racing | Chevy | 222.031 | 46 |
18 | 27 | Alexander Rossi | Andretti Autosport | Honda | 221.952 | 77 |
19 | 18 | Santino Ferrucci | Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan | Honda | 221.905 | 87 |
20 | 20 | Ed Carpenter | Ed Carpenter Racing | Chevy | 221.813 | 102 |
21 | 51 | James Davison | Dale Coyne Racing w/Rick Ware Racing/Byrd/Belardi | Honda | 221.709 | 36 |
22 | 88 | Colton Herta | Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Autosport | Honda | 221.699 | 91 |
23 | 12 | Will Power | Team Penske | Chevy | 221.634 | 124 |
24 | 8 | Marcus Ericsson | Chip Ganassi Racing | Honda | 221.588 | 129 |
25 | 15 | Graham Rahal | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | Honda | 221.498 | 111 |
26 | 45 | Spencer Pigot | RLL with Citrone/Buhl Autosport | Honda | 221.492 | 81 |
27 | 26 | Zach Veach | Andretti Autosport | Honda | 221.359 | 98 |
28 | 5 | Pato O’Ward | Arrow McLaren SP | Chevy | 221.341 | 55 |
29 | 59 | Max Chilton | Carlin | Chevy | 221.147 | 36 |
30 | 41 | Dalton Kellett | AJ Foyt Enterprises | Chevy | 220.825 | 26 |
31 | 7 | Oliver Askew | Arrow McLaren SP | Chevy | 220.130 | 51 |
32 | 67 | JR Hildebrand | Dreyer & Reinbold Racing | Chevy | 219.859 | 29 |
33 | 41 | Tony Kanaan | AJ Foyt Enterprises | Chevy | 218.306 | 6 |