The first official test day for this year’s Indianapolis 500 took place on Thursday, and it was Josef Newgarden that set the fastest lap around the historic speedway.
The Team Penske veteran completed the best lap of the day in just 39.5281 seconds, which translates to an average speed of 227.686 MPH.
Conor Daly set the second fastest speed late in the afternoon, averaging 227.466 MPH in his Ed Carpenter Racing Chevy.
Scott Dixon, Kyle Kirkwood, and Takuma Sato completed the top five positions, making for a leaderboard that was mixed with veterans, youngsters, and part time drivers.
Even Stef Wilson, who will be competing in his sixth ever IndyCar race this May, put in a lap good enough for sixth in his Dreyer and Reinbold Racing Chevrolet.
This was testing, however, and outright speed was not necessarily the goal. There are multiple days of testing and practice scheduled for the all-important race, and long lists of changes to try out are commonplace.
There were nearly 3500 laps run overall across the eight hours of track time, and Marcus Ericsson and Rinus VeeKay each completed the most out of anybody, with 156 under their belts.
Learning and troubleshooting
Teams had a bevy of new aerodynamic pieces that IndyCar made available to them this year, giving them plenty of options to test out on track.
Wing wickers, side pod strakes, and diffuser channels were all added to help give drivers extra downforce this season, with the intent of making the racing even closer than it has been in recent years.
A couple of those new pieces were nearly knocked off from the cars of Callum Ilott and Rinus VeeKay when the two came together on pit lane with only 30 minutes left in the day.
VeeKay was squeezed into the pit wall by Ilott, who attempted to join directly into the fast lane while leaving his pit box.
A few scuffed tires appeared to be the only damage, but Ilott had his session forcefully shortened by five minutes as a penalty for the collision.
The incident was just the latest problem for the Juncos Hollinger driver, who felt something wrong with the car and only completed 31 laps all day, including only 10 laps in the final afternoon segment of testing.
Veterans and Rookies
The test day was broken into three parts, with veterans taking to the track on their own first thing in the morning.
That gave the drivers with recent high-speed experience time to check out the track and get familiar with the track again without having to worry about inexperienced drivers making potentially unexpected decisions.
Marcus Ericsson, the reigning Indy 500 champion, was fastest in that opening two hour stint, lapping the track at 224.330 MPH.
Following that first session was a two hour time slot set aside for the Indy 500 rookies and other drivers who required a refresher before being allowed at full speed.
Eight drivers were required to complete the Rookie Orientation Program, which forced them run a few laps below 210 MPH, then a few laps between 210 and 215, before finally being allowed to run at full tilt around the 2.5-mile oval.
All drivers were able to show sufficient control of their cars at the high speeds, and were given the green light to participate in the open session later in the afternoon.
The rookie session was cut a bit short for a brief rain shower and moved through the area, but the clouds moved on and allowed for clear running the rest of the day.
Wind and weather
The only on-track incident of the day was when Katherine Legge ran out of fuel on track during the refresher session. A simple miscommunication on the radio meant she didn’t come down pit road when expected, and resulted in her having to get towed back to her crew.
Other than that brief yellow flag, the only stoppages were for debris and the aforementioned 45 minutes lost to weather.
Wind was a pervasive problem, however, with 30-35 MPH wind gusts keeping drivers on their toes all day.
The wind pushed the cars down the backstretch into turn 3, which led to the day’s fastest speed trap reading to be set by Newgarden, at a blistering speed of 237.841 MPH
The forecast calls for much calmer conditions on Friday for the second and final day of the test, but unfortunately it also calls for a significant chance of rain.
IndyCar has six hours set aside to try to get additional testing in, but appears as if there will not be much running around the famous track until the series returns in a few weeks for the official Month of May proceedings.
