By Austin Lawton, Staff Writer
It felt like May today as cars took to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Oval on Wednesday for the annual Indy 500 Open Test. The two day test gives teams a first glimpse of how they stack up before the Month of May.
When the checkered flag flew at 7 p.m, Scott Dixon was in first, posting a speed of 225.182 mph. Following Dixon in the top five was Josef Newgarden at 225.125 mph, Takuma Sato at 225.069 mph, Marcus Armstrong at 224.987 mph and Colton Herta, with a speed of 224.857 mph.
In quite dominant fashion, Honda had nine cars in the top 10. Helio Castroneves, co-owner and driver of the No. 06 Honda for Meyer Shank Racing, came in seventh on the speed charts at 224.447 mph. The four-time Indy 500 winner will look to make his 24th consecutive “500” start and with a brand new car and crew.
“In all consideration for brand new car, brand new team, all the guys just getting into the rhythm back together, they did an amazing job,” Castroneves said at the end of the day. “I can’t thank enough MSR for putting this program together for just one race. Even though you have teammates, it’s still a brand new program, so we went through without any issues.
Some electrical issues, but they were able to resolve that during the break. So now we are just getting back on the wagon here, and myself, as well, with the hybrid, this new system. I forgot to press it [the hybrid deploy button] because you’re just so focused on what to do, and obviously muscle memory kicks in and you keep doing what you’re doing. Overall it was pretty good, and I feel that I think Chevy is playing some game here, so we’re just going to continue to do our thing.”
The day started off with a two-hour hold after the track loss connectivity which resulted in a loss of communication between drivers, spotters, teams and emergency personnel. After the green flag flew at 12:45 p.m, two major incidents occured between two Chevrolet drivers.
Jack Harvey, driving for Dreyer and Reinbold Racing, had a hybrid unit failureon his No. 24 car. The team went back out later in the day during the all-skate session and would post the 30th best speed at 220.295 mph.
Santino Ferrucci and the No. 14 crew for AJ Foyt Racing had their hands full all day after Ferrucci suffered a complete engine failure. The team made a great effort to get back on track with 90 seconds left in the all-skate. The team posted a speed of 220.327 mph to land 29th on the charts.
Another notable result was Kyle Larson, who returns to IndyCar to attempt his second “500”. Once again driving for Arrow McLaren, in partnership with Hendrick Motorsports, Larson ended the day 11th fastest at 223.430 mph and felt good behind the wheel of the No. 17 car.
“Good to get back behind the wheel. It doesn’t seem like that long ago, and figured it would feel normal when I got back in, but it definitely took some getting accustomed to, so it’s honestly good to go through the ROP,” Larson said. “I feel like it would be hard to commit to wide open anyway the first couple laps and still just trying to get the hang of it. Definitely I feel like — I haven’t talked to any of the teammates yet, but I feel like it feels a little different handling-wise this year. I don’t know if that’s the hybrid and the weight of that or what I’m feeling, but it feels a little different, so not quite the same balance that I had last year. Overall I felt comfortable, but still a little rusty on things, small detail things, hitting buttons and trying to really get the dash setup to where it processes quick to my eyes and brain and little details like that. Good to get all that out of the way today, and hopefully tomorrow will go smoother.”
The weather conditions for the test are similar to what drivers will experience in May: hot, rising temperatures. This type of weather provides teams with good data points when first practice rolls around on May 13. Veteran drivers Alexander Rossi and Conor Daly see the weather as a good thing, even though they have thousands of laps around the Speedway.
“I think that regardless of rain, it’s usually pretty cold for the test,” Rossi said. Everyone leaves here thinking, ‘Oh my car is awesome. Everything’s easy and great and traffic running is simple,’, well, it’s not when it’s high 70’s and the track temperature gets over 100 degrees. It’s great for us to try and improve and learn from the representative conditions.”
“We’re super thankful for these days,” Daly said. “We have a run plan that is stacked, like we could test for 10 days if we wanted to, so hopefully we can get through most of it.”
The 34 drivers entered in the “500” will hit the track tomorrow from 9:30-noon for a special session where the qualifying horsepower boost will be applied to the cars, in order to run qualification simulations with the extra weight of the hybrid power unit. Then, from 2-5 pm, another all-skate will be held to close out the Open Test.