O'Ward finds his touch on third day of Indianapolis 500 practice

Arrow McLaren was mired at the bottom half of Wednesday’s speed chart, but found the antidote it needed on Thursday as Pato O’Ward discovered the pace that was missing from his No. 5 Chevy to lead the six-hour Indianapolis 500 practice session with a best lap of 227.308mph.

All of Arrow McLaren’s drivers aside from Christian Lundgaard were inside the top 18.

“It was a smooth day,” said O’Ward, who was formidable in a tow and was solid without one, as he registered the 10th-best no-tow lap as well.

“We got some race running, qualifying simulations in. The car is in a good balance window. Tomorrow when the boosts come up, it does change quite a bit. Yeah, so far it's been very smooth.”

An armada of Meyer Shank Racing cars followed behind O’Ward as four-time Indy winner Helio Castroneves was second in the No. 06 Honda (226.977mph) with teammates Marcus Armstrong in the No. 66 Honda (226.841mph) and Felix Rosenqvist in the No. 60 Honda (226.626mph) in tow.

ECR’s Alexander Rossi ran fifth in the No. 20 Chevy (226.364mph) and Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Sting Ray Robb (225.972mph) completed the top six on a day that had some wind but clearing skies as the afternoon evolved.

“The 06 machine was running pretty comfortable,” Castroneves said. “Obviously the weather condition, you couldn't ask for a better weather, not only in terms of the wind conditions, but the temperature, everything is just perfect. We know it's not going to be like this on Saturday, but at the end of the day, we felt comfortable.”

The no-tow report, which featured the first serious attempts by drivers to post qualifying simulation laps, had Takuma Sato as the leader, the two-time Indy 500 winner lapping IMS at 223.828mph in the No. 75 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda. Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was second on the list (223.738mph) in the No. 3 Chevy and teammate David Malukas (223.391mph) in the No. 12 Chevy was third.

Reigning 500 winner Alex Palou was one of a handful of drivers to make use of ‘Happy Hour’ – the 5-6pm ET window as temperatures decline but the track remains warm and grippy – and try several qualifying simulation runs.

Palou jumped up to fourth on the no-tow chart with the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda (223.230mph) as all four Arrow McLaren drivers, ECR’s Ed Carpenter, Castroneves, and a few more tried to get ahead of the curve for Fast Friday where teams can use high turbocharger boost, which is used in qualifying, and prepared for the end-of-day runs they’ll make if the showers stay away on Saturday and Sunday.

“I know it changes when you add 10 miles an hour,” Castroneves said of getting to work on qualifying a bit early, “but you want to have the sense that at least the car's not doing anything strange on the course of four laps.”

UP NEXT: Fast Friday, 12-6pm ET

RESULTS

RESULTS (NO TOW)

RESULTS (COMBINED)

RESULTS (COMBINED, NO TOW)