Photo Credit: Chris Owens/IndyCar
It’s one of the most important practice sessions of the Verizon IndyCar Series season, and Tony Kanaan can say he was the driver to lead the charge. Kanaan was quickest in Carb Day’s final practice for the Indianapolis 500.
Kanaan’s fastest lap had him see a top speed of 227.791 MPH, more than two MPH faster than any of his competitors. While Kanaan was fastest, he wasn’t pleased with an adjustment his No. 14 ABC Supply Co. team made near the end of the session.
“Engineers – you give them an extra day, they’re going to try something extra. We’re comfortable, but the last change we made wasn’t good,” he told NBCSN.
Scott Dixon, the 2008 Indianapolis 500 champion, was second in practice followed by Marco Andretti, Sebastien Bourdais and Charlie Kimball, all of whom are chasing their first Indy 500 wins.
Defending race winner Takuma Sato was sixth in practice with Will Power, Danica Patrick, Spencer Pigot and Ed Jones rounding out the top-10.
Patrick suffered a mess of mechanical issues in practice, but was glad her team had the issues in practice, rather than during the race on Sunday.
“It was some electrical issue, something we changed in the throttle,” she said. “They got me back out and at the end of the day, these are things you’re actually glad for because had it been Sunday, we’d be done. [I] Never mind getting bad luck or issues out of the way early on. That way you know you’ve eliminated one thing at least.”
Pole sitter Ed Carpenter was 14th in practice, while last year’s IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden was 15th.
The 2016 Indy 500 winner, Alexander Rossi, who also happens to be the Las Vegas odds-on favorite to win, was 32nd in final practice. He will start the race in that position as well.
