The first day of qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 got underway late Saturday morning, with six hours available to drivers to complete their fastest four laps around the 2.5-mile oval.
At the beginning of the qualifying session, all drivers were each given the opportunity to make one attempt in the order of a random draw. After that, the track was opened to any driver who wants to make a second attempt.
After one time through the order, Team Penske had locked out the top positions. Will Power set the fastest four-lap average at 233.758 MPH, with Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden slotting in second the third respectively.
All three men have virtually guaranteed they will advance to the Fast 12 shootout for pole on Sunday, even with over four hours of running remaining in Saturday’s session.
Where the real story lies is in the drivers that did not have a good first outing, and there were a few.
Rinus VeeKay was the least fortunate of all, spinning in Turn 3 and hitting the outer SAFER barrier with the left side of his car.
His spin happened late in the corner, meaning his impact with the wall was not nearly as hard as it could have been.
VeeKay slid down the track in his ECR Chevy and bounced off the wall again in Turn 4 before coming to a rest.
The Dutchman was seen favoring his leg as he climbed from the car, but said he is ready to get back on track as soon as his crew can prepare a backup chassis.
In addition to VeeKay, the entire Arrow McLaren team struggled in the first runs of the day.
The bad news started when Kyle Larson had to abandon his run on his third lap, reporting that an error relating to his Chevy engine showed up on his dash.
A Chevy representative has said that he will not need a new power plant, but the team still has to work through the issue before sending him back out for a second attempt at his first run.
Later in the morning, Callum Ilott completed a run in the #6 entry, but later had his run disallowed following a failed tech inspection.
He was well within the top half of the field at the time, and the team had to set about correcting the wheel offset that fell afoul of the regulations so he could run again later in the day.
In what was a related move, Pato O’Ward pulled out of line before even attempting his first run and his car was taken back to the garage without any time set.
The team saw the need to correct, or at least double check, the wheel offset on O’Ward’s car since it was set up in a similar way to Ilott’s entry.
Alexander Rossi also chose to forego his first guaranteed run, meaning all four Arrow McLaren entries have no times set at this point.
All drivers still have a chance to make more runs as they like until time expires at 5:50 PM, meaning there are over four hours left to correct the problems that were seen in the first part of the day.
