Photo Credit: Chris Owens/IndyCar
Fast Friday is the last practice before qualifications begin over the weekend for the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Again Honda cars dominated most of practice with nine cars in the top-15, but it was a Chevrolet whom topped the charts.
Will Power driver of the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet, was fastest in Fast Friday. He hit the speed of 232.672 mph.
“I got a good tow,” Power said. “Even when the car is out of traffic, it was pretty good, pretty solid. I think it’s fast. I think it’s going to be really, really tight for pole. There’s a lot of quick guys out there and I think Honda is right there, too. Yeah, I look forward to it. To get pole here, it’s just got to be your day and it’s got to work out. That’s the way it is around this place. I think it’s the same for the race.”
Josef Newgarden, driver of the No.21 Preferred Freezer Chevrolet was second fastest. His speed was 232.344.
“It was a good day,” Newgarden said. “It was hectic with a little bit of sprinkling, so we were not sure if we were going to get the full day in, but luckily we did. We definitely wanted to step through our trim steps. We definitely made progress with all three cars. We got a quick Preferred Freezer car, so hopefully all three of us are going to be fast tomorrow inside the top nine. We’ll do a little bit more work tonight and see where we’re at.”
James Hinchcliffe, driver of the No.5 Arrow Honda, was third fastest. His speed was 231.972.
“I think we made a lot of progress over the day,” Hinchcliffe said. “Certainly all those times up there are tow times. If you look at the no-tow report, we’re hovering around 10th or 11th, something like that. That’s all, that puts us in the fight for Fast Nine tomorrow. It’s good to get out there and run a big lap at the end. It’s great to see a lot of Hondas running up front certainly. You know, I know that not everybody is showing their hand yet. So tomorrow is going to be interesting to see. I’m really impressed with the speeds. I wasn’t entirely sure we were going to hit numbers like that this month. And it’s awesome. I think that’s one of the fastest laps I’ve ever been around this joint. It’s pretty cool.”
Carlos Munoz, driver of the No. 26 United Fiber and Data Honda , was fourth fastest. His speed was 231.952. Notably, Andretti Autosport had all five of their drivers in the top-10.
“We did what we needed to do,” Munoz said. “It’s hard to judge the speed because of the tows, but I think we’re looking strong on everything. We will see what is going on for tomorrow. The United Fiber & Data car feels good in both race and qualifying trim so that is a good indication. We’ll see tomorrow what we got.”
Marco Andretti, driver of the No. 27 Snapple Honda, was fifth fastest. He was the fastest for most of practice until the last hour. His speed was 231.824.
“It was a good day for the Snapple car – very productive,” Andretti said. “Would have been nice to have had a little more at the end of the day, but I’m particularly happy being third in the no-tow speeds. It shows that we are going to, hopefully, play for the top nine, and then on Sunday go for pole.”
Rounding out the top-10 was Townsend Bell, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Gabby Chaves, Mikhail Aleshin and Alexander Rossi.
