By Austin Lawton, Staff Writer
For most of Tuesday’s opening practice for the 110th Indianapolis 500, Marcus Armstrong was atop the speed charts. The New Zealander put up a 225.895mph mark early in the session, only to be bested by Alex Palou with less than an hour left.
Palou, the 2025 “500” winner, was sidelined for most of the day after hearing a “klunk” in the rear of the car. Palou was 32nd on the speed charts while the team went to work for most of the afternoon and was able to get the No.10 Honda back out for the final hour. Mired in a pack, Palou went to the top of the charts at 225.937mph.
Armstrong, who settled for second on the day, was very confident in his No.66 Honda.
“We felt good out of the box,” Armstrong said. “It was nice and cool in the morning and got a bit warmer throughout the day. We did about a million changes on the car throughout the day, which is always nice. Fundamentally, we rolled out well.”
Just 0.057mph behind Armstong in third was Conor Daly (225.838mph). The Noblesville, IN native proved there was pace in his Dreyer and Reinbold Chevrolet during the Open Test just two weeks ago and is now backing it up during official running. A lot of Daly’s running on Tuesday came in packs, with most of the field making single car runs for most of the day.
“We’re going to prioritize more single car running probably Thursday once we get closer to Fast Friday,” Daly said. “Honestly, I have a really good teammate in Jack Harvey, who did a lot of single car running already, so we can use a lot of that information as well. I’ve also been doing a lot of race running to help the team on that side also. I think the pack running and where I think I want to work on things as a driver is, like Lap 26 to 32 on tires, which you hope to really to not get to, like, 32 but that’s kind of where I really want to focus in on kind of keeping our balance consistent.”
Josef Newgarden (225.121mph) would end the day in fourth, followed by Scott Dixon (225.087mph), Graham Rahal (224.769mph) in sixth and Kyle Kirkwood (224.483mph) in seventh.
Kirkwood was fastest on the no-tow charts at 222.062mph, showing single car speed in his No.27 Andretti Global Honda early on.
“We put a little emphasis on how we want the car to feel, but not necessarily looking at the speed relative to other people, because we don’t really know what other people are doing out there.”
Scott McLaughlin at 224.401mph, brought his car home in eighth on the overall charts, with Romain Grosjean (223.901mph). The Frenchman was happy with his Dale Coyne Racing Honda, with the car looking improved from its Last Row Shootout-effort in qualifying last year.
“I think the team’s done a great job since the test, bringing a few more pieces to bring speed to the car,” Grosjean said. “I felt like the car got faster. We went through different setup philosophies and I think we found something that I really like in the end. It’s early days but I’m quite happy. We felt pretty racey out there, but not the fastest. I think Pato [O’Ward] was near me and I think he was a bit better.”
David Malukas would close out the Top 10 at 223.845mph in his first “500” with Team Penske.
SEE: Indianapolis 500 Practice One Results
There were only a few cautions for routine track inspections with all cars avoiding incidents. Ed Carpenter was given a brand new Chevrolet engine after it blew up on the setup pad in the Ed Carpenter Racing garage. Carpenter would end up in 16th on the day at 223.297 mph.