Abel, Andretti, Armstrong, VeeKay face Indy LCQ

Either Jacob Abel, Marco Andretti, Marcus Armstrong, or Rinus VeeKay will not be taking part in the 109th Indianapolis 500.

The four Honda-powered drivers representing Andretti Global, Dale Coyne Racing, and Meyer Shank Racing will have to fight for the privilege of filling the final row of three on Sunday, which means the slowest of the four will be bumped from the show and relegated to the sidelines.

They’ll have one hour to practice from 2-3pm ET, wait, and begin the duel in the Last Chance Qualifying session from 5:15-6:15pm.

“I think we would have been just in there, but the trim level that we were at there at the end is kind of demoralizing for the speed,” said Andretti who made multiple attempts to deliver a speed that would lock him into the top 30 spots. “So, I don’t know what else to do. I think tomorrow is ours to lose, so we just need to play it smart and just do four solid ones. We should be OK. Just the fact that we’re running tomorrow is a bummer.”

Armstong crashed Saturday morning, which sent the rest of the day into a spiral where his backup car wasn’t quick enough to avoid the shootout for positions 31-33.

“It was a rather large hit but I’m OK,” he said. “One of my first reactions when I got to the medical unit was that I’m ready to go flat into Turn 1 again. We have fast cars and I am looking forward to the race. Massive credit to the MSR crew for putting the car together so quickly. We made our two attempts, the first one we didn’t have telemetry and the second we went out with the same exact setup. I said, ‘Iif the car is good enough to do it, then I’m not going to be the reason we can’t.’”

VeeKay and DCR teammate Abel are in for a taste of the Indy 500’s Hunger Games on Sunday evening, and kept it simple: “Today wasn’t good, tomorrow will be good.”