By Austin Lawton, Staff Writer
Two major wrecks headlined the second day of the Indianapolis 500 Open Test. Kyle Larson and Takuma Sato both hit the wall coming out of Turn 1 during the morning session where the qualifying horsepower boost was applied to the cars.
Larson had a tight racecar exiting Turn 1, going into his first lap at speed. The car pancaked the outside wall, leaving Larson to get the car slowed down as he came back down onto the race track. The suspension on the car was damaged due to the first impact and the car, with Larson unable to steer it, came to rest against the outside wall in Turn 2. The Arrow McLaren driver walked away from the crash without injury.
Not long after Larson’s wreck, Takuma Sato had a worse accident in the same corner. Sato was running at speed and lost control of the car exiting Turn 1. The car had a huge impact, tearing the engine cover off and careening into the Turn 2 outside wall. Sato walked away sore but not injured. Sato mentioned to members of the media that he did not lift going into the first turn, causing him to spin.
Sato had the fastest speed, 232.565 mph, for majority of the morning session in the No.75 for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. The speed that Sato put down on this third lap of the session, topped the no-tow (speeds without the aid of a draft) charts for the morning session.
Several drivers also reported that they had to lift into Turn 1 in the morning session, due to the extra weight of the hybrid power unit and the added boost.
After the eventful morning session, drivers had a two-hour break for lunch and to switch over the cars to take away the boost. During the afternoon session, drivers took to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in droves as Alex Palou piloted his No.10 Chip Ganassi Racing DHL Honda to the top of the charts. Palou’s speed of 223.993 mph, was not the fastest of the day, however, due to Scott McLaughlin posting 232.686 mph during the morning session.
“Lots of laps, lots of learning,” Palou said. “Today, this morning, was really fun. A bit frustrating with traffic and stuff. It’s like having a crazy Fast Friday without nobody policing and everybody wanting to get clear laps. Yeah, it was fun. The cars are fast.”
“We had a really good day. A good couple days. Felt like we got through a lot from a hybrid perspective,” McLaughlin said. “I felt like the morning qualifying session, high boost session, was a bit of a crapshoot, you could say. 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 in in 40 minutes. Overall really solid balance to kick off the month of May. The car is certainly different with the extra weight and whatnot. I think speaking to a lot of the drivers, I think we all concur the same thoughts: it’s different. It’s fine, fun to get used to and understand it. I feel like I really honed in on a lot of things at a low intensity level just to feel out the car and see where we’re at.
Qualifying is going to be proper in terms of just what you need to do on the lap and thinking about what the car’s doing, the degradation of the tires with the heavier car. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I think as well, if we have a hot day for the 500, it’s going to be pretty fun. Yeah, just trying to get comfortable with the race car. Hopefully we’re good.”
Following Palou in the top five was: Felix Rosenqvist, Kyle Kirkwood, Conor Daly and Josef Newgarden. Honda drivers took seven spots in the top 10, while Chevrolet held three. Daly was the fastest of the Chevy drivers.
Kirkwood felt good about his No. 27 Andretti Global Honda as he placed 10th on the speed charts for Wednesday’s session.
“It was the best initial test that I’ve ever had by a good margin. We were really quick on no-tow speeds, race trim and qualy trim,” Kirkwood said. “Our four-lap average I think was the best outside of 12 seconds. I mean, we were really racy with some cars there, too. If you’re up front, I felt like we were one of the best that could be in that top three range. Once you get further back, it’s kind of irrelevant. We were extremely happy with today.”
Kirkwood topped the no-tow speeds for the afternoon session with 218.861 mph. That speed was not the quickest on the no-tow charts for both days, however. That speed belonged to Rosenqvist who put up 220.835 mph during Wednesday’s running.
Opening day for the “500” is less than three weeks away, but the NTT IndyCar Series will be on track in a week as the series heads to Birmingham, Alabama for the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix on May 4.