Chilton Moving Closer to Center of Victory Contenders' Radar Screen
May 23, 2017 | By Phillip B. Wilson, Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Can a driver who has been consistently quick fly under the proverbial radar before the 101st Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil this Sunday?
Maybe Max Chilton could — until Monday.
A day after Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon won the pole and teammate Tony Kanaan qualified seventh, Chilton put up the fastest speed in the final extended practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His No. 8 Gallagher Honda, which will start 15th, ran 228.592 mph. Dixon’s No. 9 Honda was third at 227.165 mph.
Race fans who have cheered Dixon and T.K. for a combined 29 years at IMS might wonder, “Who’s driving this No. 8 car?”
“You don’t win this race without having good teammates,” Chilton said. “It’s really important that the whole team is fast. Scott and Tony are in the Fast Nine, and me and Charlie (Kimball) are just behind them. So if we can catch them up and be a pack of four, it will be like a pack of wolves out there. It would be great to move forward as a team.”
Teammate Kimball qualified one spot behind Chilton in 16th for his seventh “500” start. Chilton finished 15th in his Indy 500 debut last year.
Other than a one-hour practice in Friday’s Miller Lite Carb Day, Monday’s session was an important three and a half hours for teams to finalize race setups. Chilton was just ahead of Dale Coyne Racing rookie Ed Jones at 228.118 mph. After Dixon was defending series champion Simon Pagenaud of Team Penske at 226.998 mph, then Andretti Autosport’s Takuma Sato at 226.806 mph.
“The more laps you do around here, the more you learn,” Chilton said. “I don't think anyone out there is overly happy with their car in race traffic. You keep trying to learn, trying to get it better.
“I started to stop fighting that, find ways to drive around it. In clear air, I seem to be pretty competitive. In dirty air, I started to learn how to time the moves.”
Owner Chip Ganassi has celebrated four Indy 500 triumphs, the most recent with Dario Franchitti in 2012. Franchitti is in his second year of mentoring Chilton. Dixon, a four-time Verizon IndyCar Series champion, won the 2008 Indy 500 from the pole. He’s the fastest qualifier for the third time. Kanaan won the 2013 “500” and is a 2004 series champion.
British driver Chilton, 26, thought he had a quick enough car to qualify as high as the outside of the second row, but he didn’t find the necessary speed until a day after the Fast Nine Shootout finalists were set. And finding that speed is one thing. Managing it is often something else.
In his Sunday qualifying run, Chilton ran impressive laps of 231.417 mph and 231.141 mph, but his third lap had a close call as he became one of several drivers who nearly hit the wall in a windy Turn 2.
“There was a cigarette paper between us,” he said of his right-side Firestone tires and the SAFER Barrier.
As a result, his four-lap qualifying average speed of 230.068 mph dropped him to the outside of row five. That’s five positions better than where he qualified last year.
“I don’t think we were uncompetitive last year, actually,” Chilton said. “We finished 15th, which is pretty good for a rookie, but (rookie winner Alexander) Rossi made that look like rubbish. I want to come back here and have a strong race, stay out of trouble on Sunday, and if we can do that we’ve got a fairly quick car where we can get a good result.”
He’s coming off his best result of the season, seventh place in the INDYCAR Grand Prix. But as Sunday showed, a driver is constantly adjusting to track conditions.
“I don’t think anyone is really comfortable,” he said. “The speeds are so fast. I did two fast laps at 231 where I felt quite comfortable, and then it took off. You don’t know what to expect. That wasn’t due to happen and it did, so you never know what’s around the corner.”
As established as Dixon and Kanaan are, they remind their teammates that the education process never ends at IMS.
“It's difficult,” Chilton said. “I still feel like I'm a rookie. I'm still learning a lot. Every time I get on track, I'm learning. I think it's the case with anything. Tony and Scott, they've been in this 15, or 20 years for Tony. They're still learning.
“Tony always says he comes back here, and every year he treats it like he's never been here before because it's always so different. I get what he means, because it is different every time. You never come back here with the same setup and it works. Sometimes day-to-day the same setup doesn't work.”
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