Indy 500: Dixon leads as Power and De Silvestro face qualifying battle

Chip Ganassi Racing's Dixon set the fastest first lap – 232.574mph – the fourth fastest second lap, the fastest third lap, and the fastest fourth lap to clock an average of 231.828mph.

There appear to be five drivers capable of snatching away Dixon’s first IndyCar pole since the 2017 Indy 500, once the Fast Nine shootout commences tomorrow. Three of them are his teammates – Tony Kanaan, Alex Palou and Marcus Ericsson – who ran in less favourable conditions but clocked third, sixth and eighth fastest.

The others are Colton Herta of Andretti Autosport-Honda, who had the pace to snatch second, and Ed Carpenter in fourth.

The three-time polesitter gave the lie to the theory that Chevrolet were way off Honda while running 1.5-bar turbo boost, as his eponymous Ed Carpenter Racing machine clocked a 232mph opening lap to put him right in Dixon/Kanaan territory. Carpenter ominously radioed into the team after his four-lap run that there was more to come.

Immediately after everyone set their first run times, Team Penske-Chevrolet’s Josef Newgarden headed out to make a second run, and while marginally improving his average speed over the four-lap run, he didn’t improve his 20th place.

By contrast, another Chevy runner, Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay vaulted from 12th to fifth, only a moment on his fourth lap preventing the Indy GP winner from claiming second.

Marco Andretti made a similar improvement in the #98 Andretti Autosport-Honda to edge away from the danger zone of relegation to the Last Chance Qualifiers, moving up from 28th to 24th.

Palou took a heavy shunt in the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda, with his car spinning before bouncing across the track, but the Spaniard was able to step out without assistance. He was soon discharged from the infield medical center and cleared to drive.

Having taken the slow line to join the track, Palou hadn’t needed to withdraw his current best four-lap average of 231.145mph so his time is safe and may still get him through to the Fast Nine shootout tomorrow. 

Conor Daly in the third Carpenter car abandoned his run, while Sage Karam’s Dreyer & Reinbold Racing-Chevy completed its run but did not improve.

Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

With less than an hour to go of the session, a busy pitlane prompted race director Kyle Novak to decide the order in which cars would hit the track.

Juan Pablo Montoya went out with revised gearing in his Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet but couldn’t make any improvement and finished in 24th.

Ed Jones in the Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan-Honda, made a major improvement to vault from 19th to 11th, and next up was Stefan Wilson (Andretti Autosport), who again failed to better his time from the first run.

Felix Rosenqvist (Arrow McLaren SP) sat 17th and improved to 14th, while 2020 polesitter Andretti (25th) came next and got fractionally better but didn’t move up the grid.

From the fast line, De Silvestro hit the track in the Paretta Autosport-Chevrolet and while her first lap was 230.2mph, her second was only 228.5. Her pace continued to falter to 226.55mph on her fourth lap, which dropped the Swiss outside the top 30 and will consign her to the Last Chance Qualifier battle tomorrow.

Next up came Team Penske’s Will Power, in the unbelievable position of needing to fight his way into the field. His first three laps were consistent but ranged only from 229.392 to 229.252mph, but his fourth, a 228.885, dropped him to 31st.

Tomorrow afternoon, Power, de Silvestro, Karam, Charlie Kimball (AJ Foyt Racing) and RC Enerson (Top Gun) will fight for the last three places on the grid.

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	2'35.287		231.828
2	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport with Curb-Agajanian	2'35.408	0.120	231.648
3	Tony Kanaan	Chip Ganassi Racing	2'35.414	0.126	231.639
4	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	2'35.429	0.142	231.616
5	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	2'35.519	0.231	231.483
6	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	2'35.733	0.446	231.164
7	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	2'35.746	0.458	231.145
8	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	2'35.750	0.462	231.139
9	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	2'35.773	0.486	231.104
10	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	2'35.813	0.525	231.046
11	Ed Jones	Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan	2'35.814	0.527	231.044
12	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	2'35.936	0.648	230.864
13	Pietro Fittipaldi	Dale Coyne Racing with RWR	2'35.948	0.660	230.846
14	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	2'36.016	0.729	230.744
15	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	2'36.041	0.754	230.708
16	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport	2'36.139	0.852	230.563
17	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	2'36.143	0.856	230.557
18	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	2'36.168	0.880	230.521
19	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	2'36.231	0.944	230.427
20	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	2'36.392	1.104	225.496
21	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	2'36.473	1.186	230.071
22	J.R. Hildebrand	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	2'36.535	1.248	229.980
23	Santino Ferrucci	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	2'36.556	1.268	229.949
24	Juan Pablo Montoya	Arrow McLaren SP	2'36.596	1.308	229.891
25	Marco Andretti	Andretti Herta-Haupert with Marco & Curb-Agajanian	2'36.608	1.321	229.872
26	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	2'36.673	1.385	229.778
27	Sébastien Bourdais	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	2'36.696	1.409	229.744
28	Stefan Wilson	Andretti Autosport	2'36.716	1.429	229.714
29	Max Chilton	Carlin	2'36.919	1.632	229.417
30	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	2'37.671	2.384	228.323
31	Will Power	Team Penske	2'37.049	1.761	229.052
32	Sage Karam	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	2'37.096	1.809	229.158
33	Charlie Kimball	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	2'37.617	2.329	228.401
34	Simona de Silvestro	Paretta Autosport	2'37.621	2.334
35	R.C. Enerson	Top Gun Racing	2'38.393	3.105	227.283
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