McLaughlin leads the Fast Friday field at Indy

On a day where rain delayed and compressed the running from 2-7 p.m. and everyone jumped straight into qualifying simulations with the turbo boost turned up in their engines, Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin led all drivers in the no-tow report with a qualifying simulation performance that was nothing short of impressive.

McLaughlin hurled the No. 3 Chevy around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at 232.624mph as one of the earlier runners when the track dried and had immense faith in the Penske squad as he and teammates David Malukas and Josef Newgarden strayed from the norm and went straight into qualifying simulations on new tires.

Most of their rivals ventured out on used tires to assess the track and the handling of their cars after the showers washed away the rubber on the track, but the Kiwi and his American compatriots charged into their runs with no warm-up.

“It’s only going to get harder as the weekend goes on,” McLaughlin said. “It’s going to get hotter and with rain coming as well. We’ve got to make every run count, and I felt like that was my best run of the week. Really happy to do that at that boost level."

After the 2024 Indy 500 pole sitter on the no-tow list, it was defending race winner Alex Palou in the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda (232.532mph), Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Takuma Sato in the No. 75 Honda (232.655mph), Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Rinus VeeKay in the No. 76 Chevy (232.417mph), ECR’s Alexander Rossi in the No. 20 Chevy (232.416mph), teammate Christian Rasmussen in the No. 21 Chevy (232.397mph) and Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist in the No. 60 Honda (232.324mph).

Rosenqvist actually posted the quickest lap of the event on Friday, but it came with the benefit of a tow while on a qualifying simulation run (233.372mph) and Rossi also received an unwanted tow, which made for a big speed (232.932mph) that wasn’t reflective of the car’s solo capabilities.

Elsewhere, AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci became the latest Chevy-powered driver — the fourth this week and sixth since the recent Indy Open Test — to suffer a motor problem that requires an engine change. Despite the late-session issue, Ferrucci was 10th on the no-tow (231.997mph), which suggests he could be in the mix during the run for pole position.

Among the surprises on Friday was Andretti Global which struggled to find non-tow speed with all three of its cars; Will Power was best in 22nd while Kyle Kirkwood was alarmed to be 31st in the field of 33.

Rain is forecasted for Saturday, and while heavy showers aren’t expected, persistent drizzle could force the series to make more schedule adjustments unless the weather shifts from wet to dry overnight.

UP NEXT: Practice, 9am ET

RESULTS