The second full day of practice for the Indianapolis 500 was completed on Thursday, and it was Marcus Ericsson that topped the timesheets in his #8 Huski Chocolate entry.
Last year’s winner for the Indy 500 completed his fastest lap at 229.607 MPH, which was slightly faster than the previous day’s top speed.
Ericsson set his quick lap early in the day, gapping the field by a large margin at the time, and was able to hold on throughout the rest of the afternoon.
Scott Dixon clocked the second fastest lap on the day, cementing Chip Ganassi Racing’s status as the team to beat so far in this year’s event.
In third was Simon Pagenaud, who put in a fast lap late in the day to give Meyer Shank Racing some representation at the front of the field.
Will Power was the first Team Penske driver on the time tables, coming in just ahead of Colton Herta in fifth.
Much like the day before, there were very few breaks in the action. The only time the yellow flag was thrown was to inspect the track and clean up little bits of debris.
There were no accidents throughout the afternoon, and the only work being done overnight in the garages is making setup changes in preparation for the next day’s running.
There was very nearly a large accident in the final hour when RC Enerson decided to dive down onto the warmup lane at the entrance to turn 1 to avoid a pack of faster cars that had just caught up to him.
The move is allowed when it’s safe to do so, but Pato O’Ward was in that very same lane and had just exited pit road. Enerson passed O’Ward at a high rate of speed, and there were only a few inches between them on the skinny path.
Drivers and teams spent the six hour-long session testing out a myriad of different setups, including those built for the race and those for practice.
Much of the running was done in groups in order to simulate race conditions and get used to how the cars react in traffic.
Callum Ilott was in markedly better spirits, as his Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevy was much improved over the day before.
The team still hasn’t worked out all the problems that caused his car to be nearly undriveable on Wednesday, but it was good enough to help Ilott relax a bit. He set the 32nd fastest lap of the day.
There was a little bit on concern in the Arrow McLaren pit box, as some of the tires that were coming off the cars were showing a small line of blisters on the edge of the contact patch.
Firestone engineers reportedly have been inspecting those tires and reported that the damage appeared to be a surface-level problem. Which should mean that there was no risk of a tire failure while at speed.
But even so, the ring of blisters had the team a bit worried, and they will continue to look for a solution to prevent the troublesome pockets from occurring for the rest of the event.
On Friday, teams will return to the track again, but this time they will have extra horsepower available. They will be allowed to run higher boost pressure in their turbochargers, simulating what will be allowed during this weekend’s qualifying runs.
A line of rain is expected to roll through Indianapolis later in the afternoon on Friday, so time will be quite precious in the build-up to qualifying on Saturday.
