By Austin Lawton, Staff Writer
Fast Friday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway saw speeds rise as preparations heat up for Indianapolis 500 qualifications on Saturday and Sunday.
The day’s running was hampered by a rain shower, delaying practice from a noon ET start to 2pm ET. Teams were allowed to run until 7pm ET and once cars took to the track, teams ran qualifying simulation after qualifying simulation. Felix Rosenqvist was fastest overall with the Swede laying down a lap of 233.372mph, running on the additional 100 horsepower added to the cars for qualifying weekend, in his No.60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda.
Rosenqvist ended the day confident in his car and looks to start another “500” in the top 10, a feat he has accomplished the last three years in-a-row.
“We started pretty slow, to be honest. It’s kind of rare you are able to crawl out of a hole like that. I think our first run was, like, a 230-something. Then we just found basically three miles- per- hour, so that was kind of cool. Car felt really good. Sometimes that happens. Once you find a little speed, it kind of comes because the gear makes sense, and it just kind of starts flowing, but yeah, balance does really good. I haven’t really studied the no-tow, so I thought we were pretty far up, but yeah, never been fastest on a Fast Fro-Day before. It’s a first.”
Rosenqvist was the only driver to crack the 233mph-barrier and Alexander Rossi was the best-of-the-rest, posting the second quickest lap at 232.932mph. Following Rossi on the overall charts was Scott McLaughlin (232.674mph), Takuma Sato (232.655mph) in fourth and Marcus Ericsson (232.622mph), in fifth.
McLaughlin would be the driver to impress on the no-tow charts, with the No.3 Pennzoil Chevrolet, the strongest car in single-car running. McLaughlin set his lap time of 232.674mph just after 4pm ET and would not go out again for the remainder of the session.
“I’m really proud of the execution,” McLaughlin said. “The Pennzoil Chevy was solid. We got a really good test point there for the team. We’ll go back and scratch our heads a little bit more. It’s only going to get harder as the weekend goes on. We’ve got to make every run count and I feel like that was my best run of the weekend.”
There were four Chevrolet’s in the top five of the no-tow charts, and the lone Honda belonged to Alex Palou, who laid down a 232.532mph time on the 16th of his 30 total laps run. Rinus Veekay joined the top brass of the no-tow charts late in the running. The Dutchman ran 24 laps on the day, setting his time of 232.417 late in the day, after having the car trimmed as much as possible.
“The conditions changed a little bit, so we had a bit of understeer,” Veekay said regarding his No.76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet. “Then I just said ‘Guys, f**k it, we’ll take rear wing out, see if we can rebalance the thing and go quicker’. We found the limit on the trim, so that was kind of our goal.”
Rossi (232.416mph) and Ed Carpenter Racing teammate, Christian Rasmussen (232.397mph) closed out the top five in no-tow. Rossi, the 2016 “500” champion, was proud of the No.20 car and its qualifying sims, after a consistent Friday practice.
“Pretty good from our side,” Rossi said. “I think we — our biggest issue last year in qualifying was we had quite a bit of fall-off from Turn One to Turn Four, and that was a big focus to try and figure that out without giving up too much of the pop on the first lap or two. So we were pretty content with how that went. It’s obviously going to be condition-dependent and choosing the right package for those conditions, but that’s what much smarter people other than me, that’s what they are for. I can’t even put a sentence today, so Lord knows I couldn’t choose a downforce level. I think we’re in a good spot on the 20 side.”
Much like Friday, rain will threaten some of Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions. Every driver must make at least one qualifying attempt at the minimum for the results to be official. If every car does not go through the qualifying line at least once, and qualifying is canceled, then every car will have to run again on Sunday.
For Roseqvist, Saturday will be about execution, knowing he may only get one attempt.
“Just execution. You know, nailing your marks,” Rosenqvist said. “Maybe not making it too complicated on the first run. Now with the hybrid you can go pretty advanced if you want that. I’ve seen some — I’ve been looking at the screens, and it seems like some drivers maybe have messed it up a little bit. Yeah, I think you try to keep it simple, nail your line. That’s probably going to be worth more than the hybrid anyways. Yeah, hopefully it’s good enough. Otherwise, you’re going to be a worried man or woman.”