Indy 500: Will Power tops Monday practice at over 229mph

Power lapped the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in 39.2633s, a speed of 229.222mph, with the benefit of a huge tow in his Chevrolet-powered car.

But the session was marred by a serious crash at Turn 1 between Katherine Legge and Stefan Wilson, which caused the latter to be hospitalized for advanced imaging and further evaluation.

With qualifying done and dusted, this session was all about race preparation and drafting practice in traffic. The cars’ engines were returned to 1.3-bar turbo boost – race boost levels – for the two-hour session that began at 1pm local time.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon set the early pace at 229.184mph after six minutes, ahead of polewinning team-mate Alex Palou (227.392mph) – both getting a big tow from a group of cars ahead – before Dixon’s car headed back to Gasoline Alley for a setup change. Palou also took time out to “work on a couple of things”.

All teams were allowed to pit off Turn 4, rather than Turn 3, as they will in the race and Colton Herta (Andretti Autosport) had a near-miss with Benjamin Pedersen’s dawdling AJ Foyt Racing car early on.

After a yellow for a track inspection, Pedersen jumped up to fourth, after being slowest after the opening hour, with 226.302mph.

The first crash of the entire week of practice and qualifying occurred with 50 minutes remaining, when Legge (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing) and Wilson (Dreyer & Reinbold) collided at Turn 1, just after Santino Ferrucci (AJ Foyt Racing) had passed Devlin DeFrancesco (Andretti Autosport) on the front stretch.

Legge’s left-front wheel ran into the right-rear corner of Wilson as he checked up. The contact caused both cars to spin before they struck the wall, with Legge’s car hitting side-on as Wilson’s went nose-first into the SAFER barrier.

Legge’s car, which suffered severe right-side damage, briefly got airborne before landing on its belly and impacting the wall again at Turn 2.

Legge climbed out of her car, but the AMR safety crew took 10 minutes to extract Wilson from his car, and as he was stretchered to the ambulance he raised his thumb to the crowd.

“The cars in front were all checking up, I lifted as much as I could and downshifted, hit the brakes but it wasn’t enough as they were checking up,” said Legge. “I got into the back of Stefan and we both ended up in the wall.”

The session resumed for 30 minutes, with Power going to the top of the charts with 229.222mph with 25 minutes remaining. Takuma Sato (Ganassi) went to P3, behind Dixon, at 228.382mph. Palou fell to fourth, ahead of Arrow McLaren’s Tony Kanaan and ECR’s Conor Daly. Marco Andretti (Andretti Autosport) was seventh quickest from Pedersen, Pato O’Ward (McLaren) and Herta.

Practice resumes on Friday at 11am, local time, for the two-hour Carb Day practice – the last on-track action before the start of the Indy 500.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Will Power	Team Penske	88	39.2633		229.222
2	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	67	39.2698	0.0065	229.184
3	Takuma Sato	Chip Ganassi Racing	58	39.4076	0.1443	228.382
4	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	53	39.5793	0.3160	227.392
5	Tony Kanaan	Arrow McLaren	50	39.6311	0.3678	227.094
6	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	57	39.6314	0.3681	227.093
7	Marco Andretti	Andretti Herta Autosport with Marco & Curb-Agajani	53	39.7120	0.4487	226.632
8	Benjamin Pedersen	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	53	39.7699	0.5066	226.302
9	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	66	39.7768	0.5135	226.263
10	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	61	39.8330	0.5697	225.943
11	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	66	39.8481	0.5848	225.858
12	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	77	39.8605	0.5972	225.787
13	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	65	39.8781	0.6148	225.688
14	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	66	39.9283	0.6650	225.404
15	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	44	39.9387	0.6754	225.345
16	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger Racing	75	39.9527	0.6894	225.266
17	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	90	39.9701	0.7068	225.168
18	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	25	39.9943	0.7310	225.032
19	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	65	40.0028	0.7395	224.984
20	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	82	40.0046	0.7413	224.974
21	Ray Robb	Dale Coyne Racing	60	40.0504	0.7871	224.717
22	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	60	40.0774	0.8141	224.565
23	Stefan Wilson	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	57	40.1228	0.8595	224.311
24	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	81	40.1255	0.8622	224.296
25	R.C. Enerson	Abel Motorsports	61	40.1274	0.8641	224.286
26	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	50	40.1947	0.9314	223.910
27	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	63	40.2055	0.9422	223.850
28	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	70	40.2804	1.0171	223.434
29	Katherine Legge	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	35	40.3554	1.0921	223.018
30	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	67	40.3592	1.0959	222.997
31	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	60	40.3827	1.1194	222.868
32	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	53	40.5426	1.2793	221.989
33	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	27	41.0187	1.7554	219.412
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