Photo Credit: Kreistina Blinova
Jack Hawksworth has yet to crack the top-10 in a race this year, but the A.J. Foyt Racing driver seems to have found some speed for the Honda Indy.
Hawksworth’s No. 41 ABC Supply Honda wound up sixth fastest during the Saturday morning practice session, and was 10th in the Friday afternoon session. He believes he could be a contender during Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session.
“We’ll just have to see,” Hawksworth told OnPitRoad.com after practice on Saturday. “We’re going to be on the red tires for qualifying, but we don’t know how they’re going to work. Track’s probably going to get a little bit worse this afternoon. It’ll probably be a little more humid. The red tires have a little more grip, so the car’s going to even itself out lap time wise. We just need to get the balance right for the reds. We have a good car on the blacks, so we’ll see if we can make it work for the reds.”
Most of yesterday was spent practicing in the sun, but it’s been more overcast during the Saturday sessions, which has forced teams to make adjustments for the cloud cover.
“We’re just making many changes,” he said. “We have a certain spot on the road strips where we’re trying to extract grip. We’re just trying to find the best possible traction we can for qualifying, so we’re working on that and going through various different changes to see what will work.”
After practice finished on Friday, some adjustments were made to the track, which included the wall in turn eight being changed to its previous configuration. In addition, track crews did some sandblasting in turns one and nine to add more grip to the track surface. The changes made came at the praise of many drivers, but Hawksworth doesn’t think it will change too much for the race.
“I think it won’t make much of a difference,” he said. “They put the wall a little more inwards in turn eight, which will allow us carry in more speed. They sandblasted a couple corners, but I didn’t really feel much of a difference out there other than it having more grip.”
