Full-time entries now have their race engines installed, and for the first time this week, cars were pitting off Turn 4 rather than the achingly long deceleration lane. This caused a couple of issues, JR Hildebrand locking up the front wheels of his AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet, on pit entry, Christian Lundgaard locking the rears of his Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda, and Takuma Sato having an alarming wriggle in his Dale Coyne Racing with RWR-Honda.
A weirder pitlane incident occurred when Scott McLaughlin spun his Team Penske-Chevrolet as he was leaving his box, but thankfully without making contact with anything solid.
But these little incidents were put in perspective by Dalton Kellett’s big shunt in the AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy in which he got high to go around Romain Grosjean’s slow Andretti Autosport car, and his own car snapped into a spin and into the wall.
Front row starter Alex Palou and polesitter Scott Dixon delivered a 1-2 punch, with best laps of 229.441 and 229.000 respectively, while ever more impressive rookie Jimmie Johnson joined his teammates in the top three.
Behind them came two-time winner Takuma Sato in the Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR-Honda, ahead of Marcus Ericsson (Ganassi), Josef Newgarden (Penske) and Conor Daly (Ed Carpenter Racing). Sato also completed the most laps (106).
Cars that looked stable enough to follow closely in traffic and therefore pull off – aside from the Ganassi quintet – included Alexander Rossi of Andretti Autosport-Honda, who could come from fifth or sixth in a pack and pick off cars on consecutive laps. This is promising for the 2016 Indy 500 winner, as he will have to climb from 20th on the grid on Sunday.
Another car that looked very sharp and comfortable to drive was the Juncos Hollinger Racing-Chevy of Callum Ilott, which carried out several passes. The rookie did appear to be getting slightly carried away when he backed out of a late inside pass on 2018 winner Will Power and had to go down almost to the grass to avoid running into the Penske, but he kept it together and was unharmed.
Most cars that ran second in a pack seemed easily able to complete a pass long before Turns 1 and 3. The caveat is that the air was cool and dense – 62-66degF – and the track was 92-107degF, whereas ambient temperature on raceday is currently forecast by various channels to be anywhere between 84 and 88.
