Indy 500: Penske go 1-2 in penultimate practice

With the cars back on ‘regular’ superspeedway 1.3-bar boost and on heavier raceday downforce trim, Pagenaud and Newgarden still managed to break the 228mph barrier, Pagenaud turning his 228.441mph speed with his 88^th and very last lap of the session.

He wasn’t the busiest driver – that was 2017 Indy winner Takuma Sato of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honnda – but the luminous Menards car looked very comfortable in traffic in the dense air of the day.

Another driver who seemed able to run anywhere on the track and hang close with the car in front through the turns was Andretti Autosport-Honda’s 2016 winner Alexander Rossi who finished the session in fifth.

Separating him from the Penskes was James Hinchcliffe who bumped his Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda onto the last row of the grid yesterday having shunted in Saturday qualifying, and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon who was noticeably hugging the white line at the bottom of the track through several turns – the opposite approach to Helio Castroneves who steers well clear. Penske’s three-time Indy winner was seventh, slightly slower than the sole Carlin-Chevrolet that made it through qualifying, that of Charlie Kimball, and slightly faster than Will Power.

Felix Rosenqvist made it two Ganassi cars in the top 10, but the Swede inadvertently caused a minor incident, when he felt himself drifting wide in Turn 3 as Ryan Hunter-Reay dived through on the inside. The rookie’s corrective lift off the throttle saw him shedding speed quick enough to catch out his compatriot and fellow-newbie, Marcus Ericsson in the second Arrow SPM. The black-and-gold car drifted up and rubbed the wall with his right-rear tire

As well as how comfortable their cars feel in traffic, drivers were also practicing how much fuel they could save running in the draft of their rivals.

The reason for there being 34 speeds is that Tony Kanaan tested Matheus Leist’s car as well as his own.

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	88	39.3975			228.441
2	2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	88	39.4265	0.0290	0.0290	228.273
3	5	James Hinchcliffe	Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	71	39.4748	0.0773	0.0483	227.994
4	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	86	39.4822	0.0847	0.0074	227.951
5	27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	84	39.5326	0.1351	0.0504	227.660
6	23	Charlie Kimball	Carlin	70	39.5353	0.1378	0.0027	227.645
7	3	Helio Castroneves	Team Penske	92	39.5406	0.1431	0.0053	227.614
8	12	Will Power	Team Penske	94	39.5639	0.1664	0.0233	227.480
9	10	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	84	39.5754	0.1779	0.0115	227.414
10	33	James Davison	Dale Coyne Racing with Byrd and Belardi	51	39.5791	0.1816	0.0037	227.393
11	14	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	56	39.5962	0.1987	0.0171	227.295
12	7	Marcus Ericsson	Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	76	39.6405	0.2430	0.0443	227.041
13	60	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing with Arrow SPM	84	39.6582	0.2607	0.0177	226.939
14	18	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan	82	39.6887	0.2912	0.0305	226.765
15	20	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	86	39.6909	0.2934	0.0022	226.752
16	4	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	4	40.4702	1.0727	0.7793	222.386
17	21	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	74	39.7886	0.3911		226.195
18	42	Jordan King	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	61	39.8023	0.4048	0.0137	226.118
19	98	Marco Andretti	Andretti Herta Autosport with Marco & Curb-Agajani	50	39.8040	0.4065	0.0017	226.108
20	88	Colton Herta	Harding Steinbrenner Racing	80	39.8185	0.4210	0.0145	226.026
21	19	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	84	39.8190	0.4215	0.0005	226.023
22	30	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	98	39.8200	0.4225	0.0010	226.017
23	39	Pippa Mann	Clauson-Marshall Racing	57	39.8465	0.4490	0.0265	225.867
24	25	Conor Daly	Andretti Autosport	82	39.8470	0.4495	0.0005	225.864
25	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	85	39.8677	0.4702	0.0207	225.747
26	26	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	74	39.8815	0.4840	0.0138	225.669
27	77	Oriol Servia	Team Stange Racing with Arrow Schmidt Peterson	65	39.8947	0.4972	0.0132	225.594
28	48	J.R. Hildebrand	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	59	39.8987	0.5012	0.0040	225.571
29	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	71	39.9071	0.5096	0.0084	225.524
30	63	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	61	39.9743	0.5768	0.0672	225.145
31	24	Sage Karam	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	53	40.0892	0.6917	0.1149	224.499
32	32	Kyle Kaiser	Juncos Racing	78	40.2007	0.8032	0.1115	223.877
33	4	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	4	40.4702	1.0727	0.2695	222.386
34	81	Ben Hanley	DragonSpeed	84	40.5362	1.1387	0.0660	222.024