VICS: Hinchcliffe – ‘Not Everybody Showing Hand Yet’

For Fast Friday practice for the 100^th Running of the Indianapolis 500, James Hinchcliffe, driver of the No. 5 Arrow Electronics Honda, finished third with a 231.972 mph.

“I think we made a lot of progress over the day,” he said. “Certainly all those times up there are tow times. If you look at the no-tow report, we’re hovering around tenth or eleventh, something like that. That’s all, that puts us in the fight for Fast Nine tomorrow.”

Up to now Hondas had been struggling so far this season, but as they have been practicing for the Indy 500, they have been dominating the Chevrolet with having nine cars in the top-15 in speeds on Fast Friday.

“It’s great to see a lot of Hondas running up front certainly,” he said. “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 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.”

For the Indianapolis 500 drivers go old school and draw where they will go out for qualifying.

“No, I think the draw is a bit of a lottery because weather does play such a big factor,” he said. “We saw that today, wind, sun and all that stuff, ambient. So as Carlos (Munoz) says, though you get multiple attempts.

“The first one is usually your best. If the balance is right, the parts of the car you want hot are hot, the parts of the car you want cold are cold. It’s tough to totally recreate all that, get the best out of that. So you kind of hope for a good draw. You hope you only have to do it once to get yourself in the Fast Nine.”

During qualifying on Saturday the Fast Nine will be set, then the Fast Nine will have to qualifying again on Sunday to determine their spot in positions one through nine.

“If you were competing for Fast Nine, it’s been the case anyway the last couple years,” he said. “It doesn’t change a whole lot. It’s just if you’re kind of hovering around like ninth to 14^th, whatever, eighth to14th kind of range, there’s a good chance you’re going to do a second run because you’re either– you have to try to protect your spot or you think you’re going to bump in.

“So you might end up doing more if you’re kind of in that bubble. But for everybody else I think it’s kind of similar, so it’s not a huge difference.”

For Fast Friday, the cars had the extra boost added to them and speeds in the 230’s mph were seen for the first time at IMS this season.

“You might get someone brushing 232 mph flat on their own for a lap,” he said. “But it’s just tough. like I said, no one has gone flat yet to really know what it is. It’s quick, man. No doubt about it.

“It’s higher that I though it was going to be for sure. But it’s fun.”

The 100^th Running of the Indianapolis 500 will be run on Sunday May 29^th. The Canadian has four starts at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with his best finish being sixth in 2012.