Tagliani bumped out of Indy 500 field

Conquest driver Tagliani, who had been trying to qualify for his first Indy 500, had looked safe in 26th place at the start of the day, but so many drivers improved their times that the Canadian found himself on the bubble when Andretti got back into the field at Hunter-Reay's expense with the penultimate run of the day.

Hunter-Reay instantly responded and did just enough to get onto the grid. His four-lap average of 220.597mph was a scant 0.04mph quicker than Tagliani's from Saturday, but that was enough to get Vision Racing's Hunter-Reay in and end Tagliani's hopes of making the field.

"It's difficult to accept the fact that you need to go home with a car that is capable to be in the field," Tagliani said. "It's hard to comprehend. I just want to turn the page and just get back in the car at Milwaukee.

"Until the next time I jump in the car, it's going to be pretty tough. I know the way I am, and this race was important for me, and it's really difficult right now."

1996 race winner Buddy Lazier (Hemelgarn) and 3G's NASCAR convert Stanton Barrett were the other two drivers to miss out on Bump Day, as ironically Conquest's other driver Bruno Junqueira became the only man who started the day outside the grid on get into the race on Bump Day.

With the weather conditions much more favourable than yesterday's, it was clear that higher speeds were going to be possible. That meant that rather than waiting to be bumped out and then retaliating, a host of drivers withdrew their existing qualifying times as soon as they got near to being on the bubble.

Tomas Scheckter (Dale Coyne Racing), Dreyer & Reinbold's Milka Duno and Mike Conway, Hunter-Reay and HVM's EJ Viso and Tomas Scheckter all pulled this gamble off successfully and managed to move to safer times, while Junqueira had little trouble making the cut on his first run of the month.

With just 15 minutes of the session remaining, Andretti, Barrett and Lazier were all outside the field, and Hunter-Reay had been pushed back onto the bubble again.

Andretti was first to try and snatch Hunter-Reay's grid spot, but his four-lap average was 0.13mph too slow to bump the Vision car from the field.

Barrett and Lazier then made last ditch efforts to qualify, before both waved off their runs after poor first laps made it clear there was no point in continuing.

Their quick decisions to abandon their attempts allowed Andretti to go back out again with five minutes to go - and this time he found a massive improvement and jumped to 28th, pushing Hunter-Reay out.

Last year's rookie of the year immediately took to the track in response, and at first looked set to comfortably qualify. Hunter-Reay then lost speed on his third lap, but still managed to maintain enough momentum to pip Tagliani and claim 33rd on the grid - to his huge relief after a troubled month of struggling for speed.

At the other end of the line-up, Helio Castroneves secured his third Indy 500 pole last weekend, and will lead the race away next Sunday afternoon.

Complete Indianapolis 500 starting line-up:

Pos  Driver             Team                     Speed
 1.  Helio Castroneves  Penske                   224.864mph
 2.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske                   224.083mph
 3.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi                  224.010mph
 4.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan      223.954mph
 5.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi                  223.867mph
 6.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green           223.612mph
 7.  Mario Moraes       KV                       223.331mph
 8.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green           223.114mph
 9.  Will Power         Penske                   223.028mph
10.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green           222.882mph
11.  Alex Lloyd         Schmidt/Ganassi          222.622mph
12.  Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon             223.429mph
13.  Paul Tracy         KV                       223.111mph
14.  Vitor Meira        Foyt                     223.054mph
15.  Justin Wilson      Coyne                    222.903mph
16.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green           222.805mph
17.  Ed Carpenter       Vision                   222.780mph
18.  Dan Wheldon        Panther                  222.777mph
19.  AJ Foyt IV         Foyt                     222.586mph
20.  Scott Sharp        Panther                  222.162mph
21.  Sarah Fisher       Fisher                   222.082mph
22.  Davey Hamilton     Dreyer & Reinbold        221.956mph
23.  Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan      221.692mph
24.  Townsend Bell      KV                       221.195mph
25.  Oriol Servia       Rahal Letterman          220.984mph
26.  Tomas Scheckter    Coyne                    221.496mph
27.  Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold        221.417mph
28.  John Andretti      Dreyer & Reinbold/Petty  221.316mph
29.  EJ Viso            HVM                      221.164mph
30.  Bruno Junqueira    Conquest                 221.115mph
31.  Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold        221.106mph
32.  Nelson Philippe    HVM                      220.754mph
33.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Vision                   220.597mph