INDIANAPOLIS — Despite a totally different feel on the race track after heavy rain on Wednesday washed all of Tuesday’s rubber away, Thursday’s practice session for the 106th Indianapolis 500 had similar results to Day One.
Takuma Sato was once again the fastest driver on the track with a fast lap of 227.519 miles per hour in the No. 51 Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Honda. And for the second practice in a row, 2008 Indianapolis 500 winner Scott Dixon’s No. 9 PNC Bank Honda was the second fastest at 227.335 mph.
They are the same two drivers who finished in those positions on Tuesday. Wednesday’s practice was cancelled because of rain, so Thursday’s practice saw an impressive 3,114 laps run in the six-hour session.
Rookie driver David Malukas put two of Dale Coyne’s cars in the top three after the rookie driver from Chicago ran a quick speed of 226.869 mph in the No. 18 Honda. JR Hildebrand ran a lap at 226.846 mph in the No. 11 ROKiT Chevrolet for AJ Foyt Racing.
Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson rounded out the top five with a fast lap of 226.409 mph in the No. 48 Carvana/American Legion Honda.
“I think it’s a culmination of finding the balance when you’re in clean air versus in traffic,” Johnson said. “There’s a pretty big difference in how the car handles and behaves.
“Managing that and just understanding how uncomfortable I can be by myself, to then be more comfortable in traffic or the other way around. Those are the things I’m personally working through and trying to understand on top of working out the timing that it takes to set up a pass and get the proper run off of two or four.”
Team Penske driver Will Power had the fastest “No-Tow” speed. That is a better indicator of what to expect in this weekend’s qualifications as the lap speed is not aided by a draft from the car with 10 seconds in front or 10 seconds bend.
Power’s “No Tow” speed was 224.325 mph in the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet. Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing was second on the “No Tow” chart with a lap at 224.047 mph, while his teammate and team owner Ed Carpenter was third at 223.858 mph.
Rookie driver Callum Ilott of Britain was fourth at 221.894 mph.
Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren SP had the best trap speed of the day at 235.232 mph recorded at the start/finish line.
Speeds will increase as each car gets extra boost for “Fast Friday” and will have that additional turbocharger boost throughout qualification weekend.
“I think we did a little bit of everything,” Carpenter said after finishing the day 10th at 225.493 mph. “We started the day off doing some race running with the change from where we were the other day, first day I guess it was.
“It took us a little bit to kind of rebalance that change. In the end I think it was better, but we weren’t super happy in the first part of the day, then we wanted to shift gears and start getting some of our configurations and balances ready for tomorrow when we start going fast.
“It’s one of those weird ones like I kind of would have liked to have done what Ganassi did and just do race running all day long, but we also have gone into Fast Friday not in a great head space for qualifying before, and kind of gotten confused once the boost is turned up. We wanted to go into tomorrow feeling pretty good about our balance at different trim configurations.
“I think we accomplished all that, and then finished off the race running again at the end of the day and felt right nice.”