Indy 500: Sato puts Coyne on top on Day 1, Jimmie Johnson third

Sato ran only four laps in the morning’s two hour session, unhappy with the aero balance of his car, but come the afternoon, he shone. On his 63^rd of 64 laps, the 2017 and 2020 Indy winner got a strong tow from several cars and lapped the 2.5-mile oval in 39.3118sec, an average speed of 228.939mph.

Despite his best effort receiving tow assists, he actually made up most of his speed on the opposition in the Turns, since his trap speeds were ‘only’ between 4^th and 5^th fastest.

His teammate, rookie David Malukas, was seventh fastest with his best lap coming in his 35^th of 80 laps driving the Coyne w/ HMD machine.

This morning’s pacesetter Scott Dixon was second fastest on a very promising day for Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda, in which all five Ganassi entries finished in the top nine, with NASCAR legend but IndyCar rookie Jimmie Johnson clocking third fastest time ahead of Marcus Ericsson fourth, Alex Palou sixth and Tony Kanaan ninth.

No less encouraging was that four of the Ganassi cars lay between third and eighth on the no-tow charts.

The top two no-tow speeds came from Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolets of Rinus VeeKay who was fifth overall, and the team owner Ed Carpenter who was only 29^th overall.

Josef Newgarden was quickest of the Team Penske-Chevrolets in eighth, while the fastest Andretti Autosport-Honda driver was the 2020 polesitter, Marco Andretti, a hair quicker than rookie teammate Devlin DeFrancesco.