Daly takes charge on second day of Indianapolis 500 practice

Conor Daly was fast to open the Indianapolis 500 on Tuesday, and even faster on Wednesday when the Dreyer & Reinbold Racing ace topped the speed chart with a lap of 228.080 mph turned in the No. 23 Chevy.

“We weren’t even flat on that lap, so I don’t know, the car feels pretty good,” Daly said. “Honestly, it was very exciting out there too. I saw more side-by-side racing out there on that run than I’ve seen in practice for a long time, so it’s good.”

As the field of 33 focused on race-trim running, Daly had a few drivers come close as tows helped Alex Palou, Tuesday’s best in the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, climb to second (228.026mph) and Team Penske’s David Malukas reach third in the No. 12 Chevy (227.139mph).

Daly’s early run was the standard bearer that held for the majority of the 12-6pm session, but others like Graham Rahal, who managed to finish Wednesday in fourth-fastest with the No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda, and Romain Grosjean, who took fifth (226.591mph) in the No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda, showed well in cars that haven’t been magical in recent Indy 500s.

Ganassi’s Scott Dixon, a perennial threat for pole and the win, completed the top six in the No. 9 Honda (226.572mph).

Elsewhere, Penske’s Scott McLaughlin made use of the new Chevy engine that went into his No. 3 car overnight to run seventh (226.173mph), while ECR’s Ed Carpenter, who received a new motor halfway through Tuesday, wasn’t as fortunate, ending the session in 32nd (222.227mph). His teammate Alexander Rossi became the sixth Chevy-powered driver since the end-of-April Indy Open Test to require an engine change when his day was shortened due to a problem that sent his car back to the garage to receive a fresh mill.

Arrow McLaren was the only front-running team as a whole to finish Wednesday down from its normal placement, as its quartet ranged from 22nd with Nolan Siegel (224.234mph) to 27th with Pato O’Ward (223.699mph).

“Good Day 2 for us,” Siegel said after climbing from his No. 6 Chevy. “We focused just on traffic running today. Not quite as strong as we were yesterday in the early afternoon, but then we made some really good changes and had my best run so far of the Open Test and first few practice days to end the day today. So, happy with where we’re at. We’ll keep making progress. We know what we need to do. It’s just about execution now."

UP NEXT: Practice 3, Thursday, 12-6pm ET

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