Indy 500 polesitter Dixon tops Carb Day running

Carb Day for the 105th Indianapolis 500 is complete, and it was Scott Dixon who put in the fastest time of the critical final day of practice.

The pole sitter completed a lap at an average speed of 228.323 MPH in the final practice session, over one mile-per-hour faster than Simon Pagenaud, who put himself second on the timesheets.

Chip Ganassi Racing looked strong overall once again and so did Ed Carpenter Racing, with both teams having figured out their setups and deciding to put the cars away early.

Team Penske picked up the pace over what they had shown in the earlier sessions, placing all four in the top 10 and looking like they finally found the pace to match some of the other teams.

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The start of the session was delayed a few minutes longer than anticipated due to a fuel spill that occurred when Alexander Rossi’s car was being prepped for the session.

IndyCar gave the team a five-minute penalty for the inconvenience caused to the rest of the teams, shortening the available time for running.

The end of the session came a little early as well, as rain moved in 10 minutes before the scheduled end of the session.

Everything new

Despite being the last practice day at the end of nearly two weeks of running, there was plenty new for the field of drivers to come to grips with.

Behind the cold front that brought the rain earlier in the day were temperatures that were cooler than any seen the rest of the month.

The brisk temperatures allowed for a fast pace, but also demanded different setups that were fine-tuned throughout the two hours.  Similar temperatures will be on offer for Sunday, so finding the correct configuration was as important as ever.

Many teams have also swapped engines completely since qualifying, ensuring that their power units are as fresh and possible for the race.

There are a multitude of little things that can be missed when hooking up a new engine, of course, and today’s running served as a systems check before the most important race of the year begins.

Raceday practice

Today’s running was all about practicing for the race.  At times there was almost the entire field on track at once and there was an abundance of blocking and passing.

Knowing the limits of your car in traffic is critical and it’s best to figure everything out before the green flag.

Other raceday procedures were in place as well, including pit entry not requiring a trip down the service road through turns 3 and 4 which gave drivers a new challenge when entering pit road.

Crews were also allowed to do full live pit stops as well, meaning the entire team was able to use today’s running as a dress rehearsal for Sunday.

The next time drivers will be on track will be Sunday, and the green flag for the 105th Indy 500 flies at 12:30 PM eastern time on NBC in America and on Sky Sports F1 in the UK.