INDYCAR: Shank back-out narrows Indy field

With Michael Shank Racing confirming to RACER on Thursday night that it will not enter a car for the 100th Indy 500, the field of hopefuls has narrowed. After MSR's efforts to put together a program for Chaves fell through, the Ohio-based team is focused solely on making its debut next month at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

In light of Shank's news, and with the first practice session for the Indy 500 set to start in 10 days, here's an updated list of the known entries as of May 6:

CONFIRMED ENTRIES

Chevrolet
1 Juan Pablo Montoya, Penske
2 Will Power, Penske
3 Helio Castroneves, Penske
4 Simon Pagenaud, Penske
5 Scott Dixon, Ganassi
6 Tony Kanaan, Ganassi
7 Charlie Kimball, Ganassi
8 Max Chilton, Ganassi (Rookie)
9 Josef Newgarden, ECR
10 Ed Carpenter, ECR
11 JR Hildebrand, ECR
12 Sebastien Bourdais, KV
13 Matthew Brabham, KV (Rookie)
14 Stefan Wilson, KV (Rookie)
15 Sage Karam, Dreyer & Reinbold
16 Buddy Lazier, Lazier Partners Racing (Rumors of a budget shortfall continue to circulate. The LPR team has new bodywork in hand, but will they have the funding to reach the track?)

Honda
17 Ryan Hunter-Reay, Andretti
18 Marco Andretti, Andretti
19 Carlos Munoz, Andretti
20 Townsend Bell, Andretti
21 Alexander Rossi, Andretti Herta (Rookie)
22 Graham Rahal, RLL
23 Spencer Pigot, RLL  (Rookie)
24 Takuma Sato, A. J. Foyt
25 Jack Hawksworth, A. J. Foyt
26 Alex Tagliani, A. J. Foyt
27 Conor Daly, Dale Coyne
28 Bryan Clauson, Dale Coyne
29 Pippa Mann, Dale Coyne
30 TBA, Dale Coyne (Luca Filippi is in the car at the moment, but will he remain in the seat after the Grand Prix of Indy? Gabby Chaves, James Davison, and a money-wielding Mario Dominguez share hopes of landing the entry.)
31 James Hinchcliffe, Schmidt Peterson
32 Mikhail Aleshin, Schmidt Peterson
33 Oriol Servia, Schmidt Peterson-Marotti

UNCONFIRMED
34 Grace Autosport (As we've written on a few recent occasions, team owner Beth Paretta is known to be working on a program behind the scenes, but has refrained from commenting on those plans.)