Indy 500: Sato fastest in final Carb Day practice at over 227mph

Two-time Indy 500 winner Sato lapped the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in 39.4988s, a speed of 227.855mph.

In the final two hours of running before the Indy 500 race start, the track was filled with the 33 cars right from the green flag – although there were a couple of early yellows for track inspections.

Ahead of his final start in IndyCars, Tony Kaanan set the early pace for Arrow McLaren at 224.811mph straight out of the box, in perfect weather conditions and lighter winds than yesterday.

Alex Palou (Ganassi) produced 225.531mph to briefly snatch P1 before Romain Grosjean went to the top at 226.286mph for Andretti Autosport. Agustin Canapino raised the bar to 226.532mph in his Argentina-liveried Juncos Hollinger Racing, and then Scott Dixon beat that with 227.295mph.

Towards the end of the first hour, Fast Friday pacesetter Takuma Sato unleashed 227.855mph in race trim in the draft.

Dixon stayed second to make it a Ganassi 1-2, while Team Penske’s Will Power was third quickest at 226.953mph. Palou was fourth, ahead of Long Beach GP winner Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti), Canapino, Andretti Autosport’s Colton Herta, Grosjean, Josef Newgarden (Penske) and his team-mate Scott McLaughlin.

Colton Herta, Andretti Autosport w/ Curb-Agajanian Honda (Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images)

It was an incident-packed session: Herta suffered a huge front-right lockup entering the pits which blew his tire. Marcus Ericsson (CGR) suffered a flapping sidepod that needed fixing, and Ryan Hunter-Reay was black-flagged for leaking gearbox fluid from his Dreyer and Reinbold car.

“It’s better it happened today than on raceday, but we lost an hour of practice,” said Hunter-Reay. “It’s a shame they shut us down.”

Katherine Legge caused a yellow when the left-rear wheelnut came off her Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing just after the halfway point.

AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci caused a stir when he passed Alexander Rossi (McLaren) in the short-chute pitlane as the green flag flew again. Rossi then repassed him into Turn 3 at over 230mph in a tit-for-tat move.

Devlin DeFrancesco then had a scare when the right-front tire of his Andretti-run car blew at Turn 2, and he did a great job to keep it out of the wall.

“I think it was just a cut tire, we were using an old set for pitstop practice,” he explained. “Definitely got my heart rate up! Happy to keep all four wheels on it, relatively.”

Front-row starter Rinus Veekay was slowest in his Ed Carpenter Racing car, and appeared to spend much of the session fuel saving, while Graham Rahal – subbing for the injured Stefan Wilson – was 30th for Cusick Motorsports/D&R.

The Indy 500 starts on Sunday at 12:45pm local time.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Takuma Sato	Chip Ganassi Racing	86	39.4988			227.855
2	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	83	39.5978	0.0990	0.0990	227.285
3	Will Power	Team Penske	82	39.6558	0.1570	0.0580	226.953
4	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	83	39.6571	0.1583	0.0013	226.945
5	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	57	39.6700	0.1712	0.0129	226.872
6	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger Racing	74	39.7295	0.2307	0.0595	226.532
7	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	76	39.7703	0.2715	0.0408	226.300
8	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	43	39.7727	0.2739	0.0024	226.286
9	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	89	39.8642	0.3654	0.0915	225.766
10	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	81	39.8998	0.4010	0.0356	225.565
11	Tony Kanaan	Arrow McLaren	59	39.9219	0.4231	0.0221	225.440
12	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	77	39.9329	0.4341	0.0110	225.378
13	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	58	39.9555	0.4567	0.0226	225.251
14	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	71	39.9586	0.4598	0.0031	225.233
15	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	84	39.9797	0.4809	0.0211	225.114
16	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	89	39.9967	0.4979	0.0170	225.019
17	Benjamin Pedersen	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	82	40.0169	0.5181	0.0202	224.905
18	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	87	40.0443	0.5455	0.0274	224.751
19	Marco Andretti	Andretti Herta Autosport with Marco & Curb-Agajani	56	40.0531	0.5543	0.0088	224.702
20	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	87	40.0608	0.5620	0.0077	224.659
21	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	73	40.0664	0.5676	0.0056	224.627
22	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	34	40.0857	0.5869	0.0193	224.519
23	Ray Robb	Dale Coyne Racing	64	40.1503	0.6515	0.0646	224.158
24	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	81	40.1618	0.6630	0.0115	224.094
25	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	61	40.1793	0.6805	0.0175	223.996
26	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	78	40.2077	0.7089	0.0284	223.838
27	R.C. Enerson	Abel Motorsports	63	40.2119	0.7131	0.0042	223.814
28	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	57	40.2175	0.7187	0.0056	223.783
29	Katherine Legge	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	35	40.2573	0.7585	0.0398	223.562
30	Stefan Wilson	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	77	40.2701	0.7713	0.0128	223.491
31	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	73	40.2786	0.7798	0.0085	223.444
32	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	66	40.4922	0.9934	0.2136	222.265
33	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	89	40.5102	1.0114	0.0180	222.166
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