Indianapolis 500: Simon Pagenaud fastest as rain limits running
Poor weather continued to stifle practice for the Indianapolis 500, with rain severely limiting IndyCar track time on the fourth day of running on Wednesday
Rain forced the start of the session to be delayed by five hours, and the appearance of additional showers early in the evening led to it being stopped after around an hour of running time. It follows a similarly rain-affected day on Tuesday.
Last weekend's IMS road course race winner Simon Pagenaud ended the day on top with a fastest average of 226.122mph, putting himself ahead of JR Hildebrand (225.854mph), Scott Dixon (225.494mph), Helio Castroneves (225.340mph) and Mikhail Aleshin (225.310mph).
Rookie Jack Hawksworth brought out the yellows with a crash at Turn 3, and while the Brit was unhurt, he said that he was at a loss to explain the cause of the accident.
"I have no idea what happened to be honest," said the BHA driver. "We just went into [Turn] 3 and it just snapped, so we'll have to look into it. Honestly, I wouldn't want to comment just yet because I have no idea. Suddenly it just snapped."
More Indy 500 practice shots in the AUTOSPORT news gallery
Thirty drivers capitalised on the small window of track time that was available, although Kurt Busch took advantage of the limited opportunity for practice by heading over to Charlotte to spend the day with his Stewart-Haas NASCAR team.
"Sometimes to just have a reset and have a day when we're not continuing to feed information, and just have a day to digest [is useful]," said Busch, who is attempting to become the fourth driver to complete the Indy 500/Charlotte 600 double.
"Once the track is good to go, we're going to have cooler conditions and it's going to be more ideal for qualifying trim anyway."
Alex Tagliani, who will drive a second Sarah Fisher Hartman entry, said that the loss of track time was more likely to hurt his preparations for qualifying than the race.
"The second day we were running, we went to try something and we didn't have time to try it," said the Canadian.
"The same thing happened yesterday [Tuesday] with the rain. Just before it started pouring down, we had made a massive change and were about to go try it and we didn't have time.
"I think we never extracted the full potential of the car, and we never got the car to the speed that it's capable of. It is what it is, but that's the challenge of the Speedway in the Month of May."
Pos Driver Team/Engine Speed Time Gap Laps 1. Simon Pagenaud Schmidt/Honda 226.122 39.8016s 36 2. JR Hildebrand Carpenter/Chevy 225.854 39.8488s +0.0472s 31 3. Scott Dixon Ganassi/Chevy 225.494 39.9123s +0.1107s 49 4. Helio Castroneves Penske/Chevy 225.340 39.9396s +0.1380s 12 5. Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt/Honda 225.310 39.9449s +0.1433s 45 6. Ryan Briscoe Ganassi/Chevy 225.276 39.9510s +0.1494s 52 7. Juan Pablo Montoya Penske/Chevy 225.134 39.9762s +0.1746s 61 8. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti/Honda 225.110 39.9804s +0.1788s 41 9. Justin Wilson Coyne/Honda 225.058 39.9897s +0.1881s 31 10. Josef Newgarden Fisher/Honda 224.948 40.0093s +0.2077s 41 11. Tony Kanaan Ganassi/Chevy 224.752 40.0442s +0.2426s 30 12. EJ Viso Andretti/Honda 224.731 40.0478s +0.2462s 55 13. Charlie Kimball Ganassi/Chevy 224.544 40.0812s +0.2796s 42 14. Ed Carpenter Carpenter/Chevy 224.492 40.0905s +0.2889s 21 15. Alex Tagliani Fisher/Honda 224.384 40.1099s +0.3083s 30 16. Marco Andretti Andretti/Honda 224.370 40.1124s +0.3108s 18 17. Sebastien Bourdais KV/Chevy 224.307 40.1236s +0.3220s 47 18. Jack Hawksworth Herta/Honda 224.000 40.1786s +0.3770s 28 19. Pippa Mann Coyne/Honda 223.984 40.1815s +0.3799s 42 20. Carlos Munoz Andretti/Honda 223.754 40.2228s +0.4212s 41 21. Carlos Huertas Coyne/Honda 223.651 40.2412s +0.4396s 43 22. Takuma Sato Foyt/Honda 223.329 40.2993s +0.4977s 59 23. Sebastian Saavedra KV/Chevy 223.181 40.3261s +0.5245s 41 24. Oriol Servia Rahal/Honda 222.780 40.3986s +0.5970s 33 25. Graham Rahal Rahal/Honda 222.152 40.5128s +0.7112s 33 26. Sage Karam Ganassi/Chevy 222.096 40.5230s +0.7214s 16 27. Jacques Villeneuve Schmidt/Honda 221.682 40.5987s +0.7971s 32 28. Martin Plowman Foyt/Honda 221.013 40.7216s +0.9200s 32 29. Will Power Penske/Chevy 175.729 51.2152s +11.4136s 2 All drivers use Dallara chassis
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