INDY 500 - Fast Friday start Fast! Rain on the Way?

Oriol Servia, driving for Scuderia Corsa/RLL, fast early on Fast Friday. RIS/Larry CLarino

Indianapolis - RIS - May 18, 2018 - It’s Fast Friday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, for the 102nd running of the 500 Mile Race. Honda and Chevy get to turn up the boost of their engines today in preparation for two days of qualifications this weekend. Somewhere between 50 and 75 horse power will be added for the “Go Fast” days.

The field of 35 entries is tight, really tight. There is only an unbelievable 0.8 seconds in lap times, separating all 35 cars. That translates into about 240 feet on the track. The slightest mistake on track during qualifications can quite literally, be the difference the pole and not making the show as only the 33 fastest cars on Saturday get to attempted a run Sunday for their grid spot.

Marco Andretti’s speed of 227.053 set on Wednesday set the standard for the week, Conor Daly and Stefan Wilson are the 34th and 35th just 0.35 seconds back.

The new car, actually the new body work on the car, from Dallara has been reported as much harder to drive than last year. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Ed Jones said, “It is much more of a handful. Passing will be harder than last year. Alone the car is very much like an Indy Lights car, plenty of grip, a solid feel, but in a group the front washes out.”

“You have to work the tools (sway bars and weight jackers) more than before,” said Jones, “Massive understeer, so you need to work the bars very quickly. It (understeer) comes on about mid-corner, we change bars on entry, than quickly change on exit to keep the back end in place. We are actually working the tools on the short shoots.”

Everyone is having problems. “It’s a whole different beast,” Tony Kanaan said of the new Dallara aero’ed chassis. "In traffic it’s a lot different. It’s much harder to drive. We lost a lot of downforce from previous years. It’s more difficult, for sure.”

“This car is a lot ‘driver’ than last year’s car,” Graham Rahal said. “There’s a common misconception that this car has less downforce and less drag. It doesn’t. The Speedway (aero) package is ‘draggier’ than both packages from last year. That’s what kills the speed. We’re talking about 60 pounds of drag, which is six miles per hour. The only way you make up for that is horsepower.”

In the first half hour of practice, Dale Coyne Racing’s SebastienBourdais is fastest, without a tow, at 228.330 MPH. With as much drag as this body is generating, the tow comes into effect much sooner than in the past.

We are seeing a lot of activity as it looks like rain could well be in the area around 3:00 pm today.

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Volume 2018, Issue 5, Posted 11:46 AM, 05.18.2018