Andretti team looks to regroup for race day at Indy

Andretti Global was expected to feature in all phases of this year’s Indianapolis 500, but the three-car effort for 2022 Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson, 2018 winner Will Power and championship contender Kyle Kirkwood was the only big team missing from the fastest qualifying sessions.

In fact, all three were finished for the day after the opening full-field run where Ericsson ran 18th, Power was 20th and Kirkwood left in 26th. As Indy 500 qualifying often proves, a driver’s place in time trials is by no means an indicator of where they’ll finish, and to that end, Andretti’s absence from the Fast 12 where its closest rivals played is by no means a guarantee the trio will finish 18th or lower.

“It was quite a tough qualifying weekend for us,” Ericsson said. “We already felt on Friday when we put the boost up that we were missing something as a team, which was disappointing. But I feel like the No. 28 group still made some good progress. With the (rain) cancellation yesterday, it made things even more tricky because we couldn’t do multiple attempts in qualifying, which would have been nice. The attempt we did today, I think we had some good speed in the car. The No. 28 Honda was definitely speedy, but it was a little too much to handle. So, it was a disappointing result, but I still feel very hopeful for next weekend.”

Despite the missing the speed, Power was pleased with the performance of the No. 26 Honda.

“That was a good run for us,” he said. “We were expecting to be well into the 20s, so we were OK with where we landed. We thought the warmer conditions would help us because we had really good downforce, which it did. Obviously wish we were starting a bit higher, but we’re confident with our race cars and I’m looking forward to getting back on track in tomorrow’s practice.”

Kirkwood was resigned to his qualifying fate and expects to improve from 26th on the grid.

“The No. 27 Honda feels really good, so there’s not a whole lot that we can do,” he said. “We were right at the top of the charts in no-tow and race trim. I was very confident in race trim, especially starting pretty far back here. We know we’ll be able to move forward, and that’s exactly what we expect to do during the race.”