Skip to Main Content

News & Multimedia

Helio Castroneves
Field Offers Glance of a Potentially Great Race Day with Racy Monday Practice

Josef Newgarden considered Monday’s final extended practice session a strong indication of what to expect come Sunday in the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil.

A 33-car field that ran 2,886 laps on a sun-splashed Indianapolis Motor Speedway displayed some tight pack racing, strong tows and flashes of three-wide jockeying on the straightaways as drivers sweated through long fuel runs with their newly installed race engines.

That Newgarden’s No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet finished the three-and-a-half-hour session with the best speed of 227.414 mph shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. He qualified second.

“I think this was probably the most representative day that we’re going to get going into Sunday, which was great,” Newgarden said. “You saw everyone was in a pack together, because that’s what we needed to see.

“For me, some guys looked really good at certain points, then they looked really bad at other points. I think that’s kind of how it’s going to be on Race Day. I think guys are going to be good at one point, bad at another, and it’s about making your race more good than bad.”

What did rate as a surprise was the performance of the one woman in the field.

Dale Coyne Racing’s Pippa Mann, who qualified 25th, raised some eyebrows with the best lap for a Honda engine at 225.833 mph, which ranked fifth overall. The 32-year-old Brit, who crashed during Saturday qualifying, acknowledged most of the cars at the top of the speed chart benefited from a strong draft.

“We’ve still got some work to do,” said the driver of the No. 63 Susan G. Komen Honda. “I think anybody who is watching will know that most of the people at this end of the timing chart caught a pretty big tow, and I’m no exception. I think and I hope we have a top-20, top-15 race car. That’s the goal. That’s the hope.”

Mann is starting her fifth Indy 500. Her best finish was 20th as a rookie for Conquest Racing in 2011.

“There were some people better than me out there today,” she said, “but there were some people I was better than, too.”

After Honda dominated Sunday qualifying by capturing eight of the first dozen starting positions, Chevrolet engines had a decent Monday with the four fastest laps and seven of the top 11.

Target Chip Ganassi Racing’s Tony Kanaan, the 2013 Indy 500 winner, was second to Newgarden with a lap of 226.393 mph in the No. 10 NTT Data Chevrolet. That was an encouraging number for Kanaan, who qualified 18th, considering Ganassi cars failed to qualify in the first four rows. His Ganassi teammate, 2008 Indy 500 winner Scott Dixon, was third at 226.339 mph in the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. Dixon is starting 13th.

Anyone looking for the other front-row qualifiers had to scan down the list. No. 3 qualifier Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosport finished the session 10th and pole sitter James Hinchcliffe of Schmidt Peterson Motorsports was a distant 17th.

Another unexpected development involved Team Penske, which didn’t have a car in the top 17. Will Power came in at 18 with a lap of 224.560 mph. Defending Indy 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya was 20th, Simon Pagenaud 22nd and three-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves 24th.

“This was like Carb Day on steroids,” Mann said, “because we were doing it for four hours.”

Added Newgarden, “I almost went four wide, I think I backed out of it. I was going to be four wide going down the main straightaway.”

Friday’s Carb Day will provide race teams with a final one-hour practice session.

Recent “500” races have been extremely competitive with a larger number of serious contenders separated by fractions of seconds. Newgarden is convinced that’s how this race will be on Sunday.

“You’re going to have a great show,” Newgarden said. “I have no doubt about that.”

Show More Show Less