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Edition

Australia
Practice report

Indy 500: Karam leads extensive race-trim practice

Sage Karam put Dreyer & Reinbold Racing-Chevrolet at the top of the speed charts, as drivers focused on getting their cars fettled in race trim and went back to raceday turbo boost.

Sage Karam, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Chevrolet

Sage Karam, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Chevrolet

Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

The hot and humid three-hour, session, which was briefly interrupted by sprinkles of rain and a shunt for Robert Wickens, was the last chance – other than a 1-hour session on Carb Day (Friday) – for the drivers to practice ahead of the race. They now head off on promotional tours around the country.

Back to the “regular” superspeedway 1.3-bar boost, Karam was the only driver to lap under 40sec, setting an average of 226.461mph, 1.3mph faster than second fastest Tony Kanaan in the AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy. However, the Pennsylvanian admitted that he just happened to catch a great draft and that “anyone in the same position could have set the same lap time.”

A trio of Americans filled the next three places, the Andretti Autosport Hondas of Ryan Hunter-Reay and Alexander Rossi sandwiching Charlie Kimball’s Carlin-Chevy.

The Penske-Chevrolets of Will Power were sixth and seventh quickest and also turned the most laps of the day, 120 and 118 laps respectively. Power and another teammate, Josef Newgarden in particular were working hard practicing passing, and the timing of those passes.

Marco Andretti was eighth for Andretti Autosport, ahead of Dale Coyne Racing’s increasingly impressive rookie Zachary Claman De Melo and the Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda of Scott Dixon.

Indy 500, Day 7 practice

ClaDriverLapsTimeGapIntervalMph
1 24 united_states  Sage Karam  71 39.7419     226.461
2 14 brazil  Tony Kanaan  66 39.9781 0.2362 0.2362 225.123
3 28 united_states  Ryan Hunter-Reay  68 40.0320 0.2901 0.0539 224.820
4 23 united_states  Charlie Kimball  79 40.0745 0.3326 0.0425 224.582
5 27 united_states  Alexander Rossi  70 40.0878 0.3459 0.0133 224.507
6 12 australia  Will Power  120 40.0989 0.3570 0.0111 224.445
7 3 brazil  Helio Castroneves  118 40.1126 0.3707 0.0137 224.368
8 98 united_states  Marco Andretti  56 40.1520 0.4101 0.0394 224.148
9 19 canada  Zachary Claman De Melo  79 40.1623 0.4204 0.0103 224.091
10 9 new_zealand  Scott Dixon  101 40.1847 0.4428 0.0224 223.966
11 18 france  Sébastien Bourdais  92 40.2235 0.4816 0.0388 223.750
12 25 united_kingdom  Stefan Wilson  115 40.2299 0.4880 0.0064 223.714
13 32 united_states  Kyle Kaiser  72 40.2384 0.4965 0.0085 223.667
14 20 united_states  Ed Carpenter  100 40.2553 0.5134 0.0169 223.573
15 66 united_states  J.R. Hildebrand  93 40.3147 0.5728 0.0594 223.244
16 29 colombia  Carlos Munoz  109 40.3194 0.5775 0.0047 223.218
17 15 united_states  Graham Rahal  115 40.3372 0.5953 0.0178 223.119
18 4 brazil  Matheus Leist  19 40.3652 0.6233 0.0280 222.964
19 13 united_states  Danica Patrick  69 40.3721 0.6302 0.0069 222.926
20 88 colombia  Gabby Chaves  51 40.3798 0.6379 0.0077 222.884
21 60 united_kingdom  Jack Harvey  93 40.3840 0.6421 0.0042 222.861
22 7 united_kingdom  Jay Howard  100 40.3959 0.6540 0.0119 222.795
23 30 japan  Takuma Sato  74 40.4354 0.6935 0.0395 222.577
24 26 united_states  Zach Veach  54 40.4676 0.7257 0.0322 222.400
25 6 canada  Robert Wickens  3 40.4812 0.7393 0.0136 222.325
26 10 united_arab_emirates  Ed Jones  98 40.4916 0.7497 0.0104 222.268
27 21 united_states  Spencer Pigot  81 40.5267 0.7848 0.0351 222.076
28 1 united_states  Josef Newgarden  87 40.5438 0.8019 0.0171 221.982
29 59 united_kingdom  Max Chilton  45 40.5580 0.8161 0.0142 221.904
30 33 australia  James Davison  45 40.6131 0.8712 0.0551 221.603
31 64 spain  Oriol Servia  65 40.6174 0.8755 0.0043 221.580
32 17 united_states  Conor Daly  60 40.6824 0.9405 0.0650 221.226
33 22 france  Simon Pagenaud  58 40.7421 1.0002 0.0597 220.902

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Edition

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