The morning hours of Wednesday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway brought more heavy rain, which delayed the start of the second day of Indy 500 practice.
The delay only lasted one hour, however, and all 34 drivers were able to take to the track for nearly four hours of open practice and was only interrupted by a couple short weather stoppages.
Initially, the same drivers that topped the time sheets on Tuesday were quick again 24 hours later. Team Penske was quick all around in race conditions and Kyle Kirkwood was fast in solo running.
As the afternoon wore on, summer-like ambient temperatures and strong sunshine warmed up the track considerably.
A few drivers reported that the warmer conditions changed the balance of their cars. Santino Ferrucci even went as far as directing his AJ Foyt Racing crew to abandon the current line of thinking and put last year’s setup on the #14 entry.
At the end of the day, Alex Palou showed his car’s strength by completing a lap at 227.546 MPH.
The three-time series champion was well faster than any other driver, nearly two full miles per hour, and gave others on track something to think about.
Will Power and Josef Newgarden were second and third quickest, following up their strong runs from day one. Scott Dixon was fourth and Conor Daly was fifth on the final time sheets.
Young drivers David Malukas and Marcus Armstrong also looked strong by running sixth and seventh respectively.
The four-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves was right up there as well, putting his #06 entry eighth on the charts with a lap of 224.385 MPH.
More and more laps
The track stayed very busy throughout the day, and there were over 2500 laps completed during the afternoon.
The most laps were run by the veteran Castroneves, who completed 114 laps of the 2.5-mile oval. Felix Rosenqvist, Kyle Larson, and Colton Herta each broke the 100-lap barrier as well.
Each and every one of the 34 drivers completed at least 20 laps, gaining valuable data for the rest of the event.
PREMA had a much more productive afternoon than the day before, completing 90 and 55 laps with Roberts Shwartzman and Callum Ilott respectively.
The two drivers were 28th and 31st on the speed charts, but still were able to gather data to use for the important sessions that are coming soon.
On account of the delayed start, Tony Kanaan’s refresher course was pushed back another day. It is now scheduled for Thursday morning at 10:00 AM, ahead of the day’s open practice runs.
Through two days of practice, no driver has had any incidents on track. There is hope that trend can continue as we get closer and closer to qualifying this weekend.
Tomorrow’s full field practice is scheduled to get underway at noon and run for six hours until 6:00 PM.
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