Newgarden makes a statement on the third day of Indy 500 practice

The fastest drivers on Thursday appeared early and saw their speeds stand as Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden set the standard with a lap of 226.632mph in the No. 2 Chevy to lead Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon in the No. 9 Honda (225.457mph) and Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Conor Daly in the No. 76 Chevy (224.893mph).

Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward was fourth in the No. 5 Chevy (224.467mph) ahead of the surging Ryan Hunter-Reay in the No. 23 Dreyer & Reinbold/Cusick Motorsports Chevy (223.983mph) and Ganassi’s Alex Palou in sixth with the No. 10 Honda (223.456mph).

"There are two different beasts you're trying to make go fast, to be honest with you," O'Ward said. "Just because you have a good car in traffic doesn't mean you're going to have a good qualifying car, and vice versa. I've done no qualifying stuff because the car changes a lot with the boost. It could feel good today trimming-wise, but then tomorrow you put the boost on and it's like, 'What the hell happened to the car?' We had a read at the Open Test that I was somewhat happy with, so tomorrow we'll see what we've got once the boost comes on. In traffic, I think we've gotten better, but there's still a handful of other cars that I believe are a lot stronger than we are. There's still work to do."

All of the biggest speeds were delivered with aerodynamic assistance, but Newgarden made a statement with his qualifying simulation, which also produced the top no-tow speed of 222.555mph late in the day while temperature were close to their peak.

One brief stoppage was required to retrieve the Ed Carpenter Racing car of Christian Rasmussen, who spun coming off of Turn 2 and nearly avoided the wall. Extremely light damage, and the late timing of the incident, kept the Dane in the garage for the rest of the day.

After a couple of days interrupted by rain, sun and warmth was the theme for Thursday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as a full six hours of practice was run for the first time this week. Opening action at noon saw Andretti Global’s Colton Herta and a few other drivers head out to perform qualifying simulation runs before more cars filled the Speedway. Herta was the first fastest driver with a 221.588mph lap that also stood for the hour as the top no-tow output.

As the first hour continued and the track got busy with drivers running in packs to simulate race-day running, Newgarden motored to first with a lap of 226.632mph, which remained unbeaten for the rest of the day.

Some drivers like Palou went out to try a qualifying simulation, briefly ran in a pack, and left pit lane — after nine laps – for Gasoline Alley. No changes atop the leaders at 1pm with Newgarden, Dixon, Daly, Patricio O’Ward, Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Palou holding the top six. Thirty-two drivers turned laps in the opening hour, with Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and Arrow McLaren’s Kyle Larson as the only outliers.

For Larson, it was a matter of time as the team switched the cockpit fitment from Tony Kanaan, who drove the No. 17 Chevy until 11:45am while completing his refresher program. At 1:15pm, McLaughlin performed a four-lap qualifying simulation and it was strong, with his laps falling in the 222mph range, which moved him into the top 10 overall and claimed first on the no-tow report at 222.193mph.

As 2pm arrived the track fell silent with the exception of PREMA Racing’s Robert Shwartzman, who made use of the empty oval to turn laps in the 216mph range. The top six was unchanged with Newgarden, Dixon, Daly, O’Ward, Hunter-Reay, and Palou.

An hour later, and drivers like Palou, Nolan Siegel, Marco Andretti, Larson, Kyle Kirkwood, and Christian Lundgaard were running together in the mid-afternoon heat while most of the field was back in their garages waiting to return in cooler conditions.

The first driver-related caution of the event was required at 4:13pm when Rasmussen lost the tail of his No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevy at the apex of Turn 2. The session returned to green at 4:21pm, but had no immediate takers.

Daly emerged at 4:23 and had the track to himself for a high-temp qualifying simulation. He turned laps of 219.404mph and 219.444mph before pitting. Modestly sized packs used the rest of the hour to try more race day setup options and like the last many hours, the top six drivers held station.

Happy Hour arrived at 5pm with the heat holding at 88F and AJ Foyt Racing’s David Malukas performed a qualifying simulation that saw a best of 220.527mph as they tried the slow and progressive hybrid deployment method over a full lap. Newgarden followed with a simulation of his own and ran in the 221.6-222.5mph, and made use of hybrid regeneration on the back straight while receiving held from a tailwind and deploying through Turn 4.

Kirkwood was next to perform a sim and hit 221.4mph and started the gradual deployment on his third lap of 221.3mph and a fourth of 221.0mph.By 5:15pm, the track was silent and a number of teams towed back to Gasoline Alley and got to work on conducting engine changes and converting their cars over to full qualifying specification for Friday’s high-boost running.

Power rolled out at 5:18pm at a new high of 89F to do a sim and used the same backstraight regen and Turn 4 deployment as Newgarden; 220.9mph on his first lap, 220.9mph on his second, and 221.2 on his third.

Time for more turbo boost and some fun on Friday. 

RESULTS

RESULTS (NO TOW)

COMBINED RESULTS

COMBINED RESULTS (NO TOW)