106th Running of the Indianapolis 500 Arrow McLaren SP Practice Report – Thursday

Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Date: Sunday, May 29

Round: 6/17

Race laps: 200

Total race distance: 500 miles/804.67 km

Length: 2.5 miles/4.02 km

Number of turns: 4

Remaining session start times: 

  • Practice: Friday, 12:00 – 6:00 p.m. ET
  • Practice: Saturday, 9:00 – 10:30 a.m ET
  • Qualifying: Saturday, 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. ET
  • Top 12 Practice: Sunday, 12:00 – 2:30 p.m ET
  • Top 12 and Top 6 Qualifying: Sunday, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m ET
  • Practice: Monday, May 23, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. ET 
  • Final Practice: Friday, May 27, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. ET
  • Indianapolis 500: Sunday, May 29, 11:00 a.m. ET

TUNE IN FOR QUALIFYING:

  • Sunday, 4:00 p.m. ET on NBC

TUNE IN FOR THE 106TH RUNNING OF THE INDIANAPOLIS 500:

  • Sunday, May 29, 11:00 a.m. ET on NBC
Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet
Practice: 6th, 226.048 mph
Laps Completed: 98 

“A really solid day for us today. We did a lot of race running and gathered a lot of data. Tomorrow is going to consist of all qualifying running on Fast Friday. I’m really happy with the car, so I’m excited to see what speeds we can achieve tomorrow and during qualifying. Once we’ve got qualifying done, we’ll be back to working on the race car to see if we can make it go even better before next Sunday’s race.”
Felix Rosenqvist, No. Vuse 7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet
Practice: 8th, 225.788 mph
Laps Completed: 102 
“A pretty solid day for Arrow McLaren SP, we learned a lot. It was a bit up and down with how the car felt, on one run we were superstars, then the next we were scratching our heads a bit. This place is always tricky, so we just have to be calm, look at what we’ve learned as a team across the three cars, and nail it for race day.”
Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 6 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet
Practice: 25th, 224.018 mph
Laps Completed: 67 
“That was good! We tried a lot of things today. We made a lot of improvements in the car but there’s still a little way to go to be really good. I would definitely say it’s been a positive day. Tuesday was a bit more difficult as we thought we’d be stronger after the test, so we were a little bit disappointed, but now I feel like we have a decent race car. Now, we’ll focus on qualifying as we head into the weekend and see what it brings. The forecast doesn’t look great for Saturday, and it’s going to be windy, so that could make it difficult.”
        Taylor Kiel – President, Arrow McLaren SP
“Thursday complete, tomorrow is Fast Friday. We lost yesterday due to the conditions, so today was really about race running and getting our race cars in a good place. All the drivers seem to be fairly happy with where the balance is and how we’re sitting in traffic, so that’s mission accomplished. “Now our focus turns to outright pace, tomorrow we’ll get quali-level boost and all the aero components and quali-specific components will get swapped by the team overnight. We’ll focus totally on qualification and quali-sims tomorrow. Fast Friday is always a really exciting day, you’ll see some really big speeds and we’ll see where we stack up at the end of tomorrow.”