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Qualifying report

Indy 500: Dixon P1, Power and De Silvestro not yet qualified

Will Power and Simona De Silvestro are among the five drivers who will fight for the last row of the Indianapolis 500 grid tomorrow, while Scott Dixon will lead the Fast Nine shootout.

Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet

Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet

Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Immediately after everyone set their first run times, Team Penske-Chevrolet’s Josef Newgarden headed out to make a second run, and while marginally improving his average speed over the four-lap run, he didn’t improve his 20th place.

By contrast, another Chevy runner, Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay vaulted from 12th to fifth, gaining over 0.6mph on his and only a moment on his fourth lap prevented him from claiming second.

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Marco Andretti made a similar improvement in the #98 Andretti Autosport-Honda to edge away from the danger zone of relegation to the Last Chance Qualifiers, moving up from 28th to 24th.

Meyer Shank Racing’s Jack Harvey, who hadn’t set a representative time on his first run due to a bizarre apparent construction problem with his right-rear tire, had no problem in setting 20th fastest speed of the day at that time to move comfortably into the race.

Stefan Wilson in the sixth Andretti Autosport-Honda failed to improve on his 25th – which had now become 26th due to Harvey’s improvement, while the Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Hondas of both Takuma Sato and Santino Ferrucci started second runs but were waved off as their early laps showed no sign of improving their 13th and 23rd grid slots respectively.

Then came Alex Palou’s heavy shunt in the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda.

Palou told NBC: “It’s just a bit frustrating. Chip Ganassi Racing gave me the fastest car today and during the week. It was me pushing to be faster. I lost the rear on entry. Things happen when you try to go fast and take everything to the limit. We will try to fix it for tomorrow.”

Because he had rejoined the track from the slow line, Palou had not needed to forfeit his first-run time. The Ganassi team reported to NBC that the car was salvageable too.

Conor Daly in the third Carpenter car abandoned his run, while Sage Karam’s Dreyer & Reinbold Racing-Chevy completed its run but did not improve.

With temperatures climbing to 86degF ambient/120degF track, no more significant improvements were going to happen before 5pm, but Colton Herta’s Andretti Autosport-Honda – already qualified second fastest – ventured out to carry out research on expected track conditions for the Fast Nine shootout for pole tomorrow. His 230.229mph average was some 1.4mph off his best.

As 5.00pm approached, when there would be just 50mins to go, it got busy down in pitlane with race director Kyle Novak having to decide the order in which the cars would hit the track.

Juan Pablo Montoya went out with revised gearing in his Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet but couldn’t make any improvement.

Ed Jones in the Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan-Honda, made a major improvement to vault from 19th to 11th, and next up was Wilson, who again failed to better his time from the first run.

Karam, having fallen outside the top 30 that would be confirmed in the race came from the priority line to make a third run, but team owner Dennis Reinbold wisely called him in after two flying laps as it was clear he wouldn’t improve.

Next up was Felix Rosenqvist who sat 17th at the time and improved to 14th, while 2020 polesitter Marco Andretti (25th) came next and got fractionally better but didn’t move up the grid.

From the fast line, Simona De Silvestro hit the track in the Paretta Autosport-Chevrolet and while her first lap was 230.2mph, her second was only 228.5, her third was 228.3, and her last was 226.55. That dropped her outside the top 30 and consigned her to the Last Chance Qualifier battle tomorrow.

Next up came Team Penske’s Will Power, in the unbelievable position of needing to fight his way into the field. His first three laps were fabulously consistent but ranged only from 229.392 to 229.252mph, but his fourth, a 228.885, dropped him to 31st.

Both he and De Silvestro refueled and rejoined the priority line, but first they had to watch Top Gun Racing’s RC Enerson run two laps before his run was aborted by IndyCar.

AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet’s Dalton Kellett then went into the priority lane so had his time pulled, and then set a time 1mph considerably slower – thereby giving De Silvestro an easier target for her third run. However, de Silvestro couldn’t make it happen and so Kellett was safe.

However, because Power’s team had gone to the priority line again his previous average – despite being far quicker than Kellett’s eventual average, was now void.

Thus tomorrow afternoon, Power, de Silvestro, Karam, Kimball and Enerson will fight for the last three places on the grid.

Locked-in Indy 500 qualifiers, with Top 9 to run Fast Nine shootout tomorrow

P

No

Name

QSpeed

QLap1Speed

QLap2Speed

QLap3Speed

QLap4Speed

Engine

Team

1

9

Scott Dixon

231.828

232.574

231.762

231.612

231.368

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

2

26

Colton Herta

231.648

232.364

231.872

231.421

230.940

Honda

Andretti Autosport

3

48

Tony Kanaan

231.639

232.348

231.845

231.435

230.934

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

4

20

Ed Carpenter

231.616

232.239

231.777

231.361

231.092

Chevy

Ed Carpenter Racing

5

21

Rinus VeeKay

231.483

232.086

231.626

231.265

230.958

Chevy

Ed Carpenter Racing

6

06

Helio Castroneves

231.164

231.202

231.384

231.222

230.850

Honda

Meyer Shank Racing

7

10

Alex Palou

231.145

231.790

231.243

230.877

230.675

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

8

28

Ryan Hunter-Reay

231.139

231.523

231.247

230.969

230.821

Honda

Andretti Autosport

9

8

Marcus Ericsson

231.104

231.843

231.211

230.717

230.649

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

10

27

Alexander Rossi

231.046

231.408

231.118

230.947

230.712

Honda

Andretti Autosport

11

18

Ed Jones

231.044

231.632

231.156

230.854

230.535

Honda

Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan

12

5

Pato O'Ward

230.864

231.433

231.030

230.719

230.276

Chevy

Arrow McLaren SP

13

51

Pietro Fittipaldi

230.846

231.542

230.942

230.598

230.306

Honda

Dale Coyne Racing w/Rick Ware Racing

14

7

Felix Rosenqvist

230.744

231.245

230.859

230.512

230.363

Chevy

Arrow McLaren SP

15

30

Takuma Sato

230.708

231.386

230.857

230.525

230.067

Honda

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

16

29

James Hinchcliffe

230.563

231.106

230.659

230.300

230.189

Honda

Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport

17

3

Scott McLaughlin

230.557

231.154

230.698

230.316

230.063

Chevy

Team Penske

18

15

Graham Rahal

230.521

230.799

230.510

230.425

230.350

Honda

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

19

47

Conor Daly

230.427

230.908

230.541

230.258

230.004

Chevy

Ed Carpenter Racing

20

60

Jack Harvey

230.191

230.428

230.246

230.120

229.968

Honda

Meyer Shank Racing

21

2

Josef Newgarden

230.071

230.846

230.204

229.862

229.378

Chevy

Team Penske

22

1

JR Hildebrand

229.980

230.565

230.116

229.208

230.035

Chevy

AJ Foyt Enterprises

23

45

Santino Ferrucci

229.949

230.546

229.856

229.721

229.676

Honda

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

24

86

Juan Pablo Montoya

229.891

230.796

230.239

229.479

229.057

Chevy

Arrow McLaren SP

25

98

Marco Andretti

229.872

230.779

230.094

229.610

229.012

Honda

Andretti Herta-Haupert w/Marco & Curb-Agajanian

26

22

Simon Pagenaud

229.778

230.405

229.886

229.405

229.418

Chevy

Team Penske

27

14

Sebastien Bourdais

229.744

230.224

229.743

229.604

229.406

Chevy

AJ Foyt Enterprises

28

25

Stefan Wilson

229.714

229.993

229.819

229.591

229.454

Honda

Andretti Autosport

29

59

Max Chilton

229.417

230.203

229.538

229.118

228.814

Chevy

Carlin

30

4

Dalton Kellett

228.323

229.381

229.356

225.728

228.866

Chevy

AJ Foyt Enterprises

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