Indy 500 test: Ericsson leads Castroneves in first session

After half an hour of the first two-hour session for the Indy 500 veterans, it was appropriately defending winner, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Ericsson, who sat at the top of the speed charts, lapping the 2.5 mile course in 40.1194s, 224.330mph, over one mile per hour clear of Colton Herta of Andretti Autosport and Dale Coyne Racing’s David Malukas. 

Another former winner Pagenaud was fourth for Meyer Shank Racing and was followed by the quickest of the Penske drivers, Josef Newgarden, with 2008 winner Scott Dixon and 2018 winner Will Power. 

The first caution of the session flew 45m in for a track inspection. When action resumed, two of the Ed Carpenter Racing cars – that of team owner Carpenter and Conor Daly got nice tows from Takuma Sato to jump into second and fourth respectively, with Pagenaud slotting between the two. 

A second yellow flew with 45m to go, again for a track inspection, and action resumed 15m later. 

With less than 10 minutes left on the clock, Palou was able to jump to second behind team-mate Ericsson, but Helio Castroneves denied Chip Ganassi a 1-2 finish by setting a late 224.280mph lap in his Meyer Shank Racing-Honda.

The best Chevrolet-powered car was of Penske's Scott McLaughlin, who was another late improver as he jumped to fourth ahead of Carpenter.

Last-minute laps from the likes of Palou, Castroneves and McLaughlin demoted Pagenaud to sixth ahead of Dixon, who set his quickest time just after the last yellow flag period.

Herta dropped to ninth at the finish, while the top 10 was rounded off by Daly.

Penske pair Josef Newgarden and Will Power finished nearly 2mph off Ericsson's best effort in 11th and 12th respectively, just ahead of two of the three full-season Arrow McLaren entries driven by Felix Rosenqvist and Pato O'Ward.

The two-hour rookie and refresher session now begins. Rookies include IndyCar full-timers Agustin Canapino (Juncos Hollinger Racing), Sting Ray Robb (Dale Coyne Racing) and Benjamin Pedersen (AJ Foyt Racing). 

The refresher program is for anyone who hasn’t run a speedway since last year’s 500. That includes Marco Andretti (Andretti Autosport), Tony Kanaan (Arrow McLaren), Ryan Hunter-Reay (Dreyer & Reinbold Racing), Katherine Legge (Rahal Letterman Lanigan) and Stefan Wilson (Dreyer & Reinbold w/ Cusick Motorsports). 

Pos	Driver	Team	Engine	Time	Gap	Speed
1	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	40.1194		224.330mph
2	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	Honda	40.1284	0.0090	224.280mph
3	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	40.1628	0.0434	224.088mph
4	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	Chevrolet	40.1848	0.0654	223.965mph
5	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	Chevrolet	40.2208	0.1014	223.765mph
6	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	Honda	40.2612	0.1418	223.540mph
7	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	40.2746	0.1552	223.466mph
8	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	Honda	40.2849	0.1655	223.409mph
9	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	Honda	40.2883	0.1689	223.390mph
10	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	Chevrolet	40.3381	0.2187	223.114mph
11	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	Chevrolet	40.3815	0.2621	222.874mph
12	Will Power	Team Penske	Chervrolet	40.4326	0.3132	222.593mph
13	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	Chevrolet	40.4468	0.3274	222.515mph
14	Pato O‘Ward	Arrow McLaren	Chevrolet	40.4719	0.3525	222.377mph
15	Rinus VeeKay	Ed Carpenter Racing	Chevrolet	40.5175	0.3981	222.126mph
16	Takuma Sato	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	40.5384	0.4190	222.012mph
17	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti	Honda	40.7387	0.6193	220.920mph
18	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	Chevrolet	40.7403	0.6209	220.911mph
19	Santino Ferrucci	AJ Foyt	Chevrolet	40.8032	0.6838	220.571mph
20	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	Honda	40.8676	0.7482	220.223mph
21	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	Honda	40.8755	0.7561	220.181mph
22	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	Honda	40.9705	0.8511	219.670mph
23	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	Chevrolet	40.9992	0.8798	219.516mph
24	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	Honda	41.1119	0.8897	219.463mph
25	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	Honda	41.0287	0.9093	219.359mph

 

Indy 500 winners, Marcus Ericsson, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Will Power, Simon Pagenaud, Alexander Rossi, Scott Dixon, Takuma Sato, Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan (Photo by: Michael L. Levitt)