re: 2022 IndyCar Season Thread - Last Race: Laguna Seca 9/11 3:00 PM ET (NBC)

The first of two 2-hr practice sessions this week shows a familiar pattern. Four of the top 5 speeds were Chip Ganassi cars, and the 5th car was Takuma Sato. These top 5 cars are all Hondas and they were all more than 1 mph faster than the first Chevy on the list. A scary sign of how confident Ganassi is with their cars is that four of the five Ganassi drivers ran fewer than 40 laps. Only Indy 500 rookie Jimmie Johnson ran more, but even his 67 laps was a lot less than most drivers. With all five Ganassi cars on the first four rows, and with two former Indy 500 winners on the team to spread their wisdom to their teammates, I think it will be a colossal upset if a Ganassi car doesn't win the race. Among the four highest-starting Chevys (two McLarens and two Carpenters), there are zero former Indy 500 winners. Strangely, the five highest-starting Chevys are all way down in the practice order. The fastest Chevy in practice, Josef Newgarden, starts on the 5th row. I have more faith that he and his Penske teammate Will Power (starting on 4th row) will prove to be a bigger threat to win the race for Chevy than the McLaren and Carpenter cars starting ahead of them.

Practice 8, Monday May 23

P01 229.441 Alex Palou (Ganassi / Honda) - 31 laps
P02 229.000 Scott Dixon (Ganassi / Honda) - 32 laps
P03 228.467 Jimmie Johnson [R] (Ganassi / Honda) - 67 laps
P04 228.381 Takuma Sato (Coyne / Honda) - 106 laps
P05 228.017 Marcus Ericsson (Ganassi / Honda) - 38 laps
P06 226.962 Josef Newgarden (Penske / Chevy) - 98 laps
P07 226.895 Conor Daly (Carpenter / Chevy) - 96 laps
P08 226.776 Marco Andretti (Andretti / Honda) - 77 laps
P09 226.699 Sage Karam (Dreyer & Reinbold / Chevy) - 86 laps
P10 226.360 Simon Pagenaud (Meyer Shank / Honda) - 83 laps
P11 225.996 Romain Grosjean [R] (Andretti / Honda) - 101 laps
P12 225.616 Christian Lundgaard [R] (Rahal Letterman Lanigan / Honda) - 100 laps
P13 225.420 Hélio Castroneves (Meyer Shank / Honda) - 88 laps
P14 225.372 David Malukas [R] (Coyne / Honda) - 91 laps
P15 225.266 Scott McLaughlin (Penske / Chevy) - 102 laps
P16 225.075 Santino Ferrucci (Dreyer & Reinbold / Chevy) - 85 laps
P17 225.011 Colton Herta (Andretti / Honda) - 100 laps
P18 224.974 Callum Ilott [R] (Juncos Hollinger / Chevy) - 97 laps
P19 224.829 Alexander Rossi (Andretti / Honda) - 89 laps
P20 224.779 Will Power (Penske / Chevy) - 82 laps
P21 224.667 Pato O'Ward (McLaren / Chevy) - 79 laps
P22 224.517 Tony Kanaan (Ganassi / Honda) - 31 laps
P23 224.463 Jack Harvey (Rahal Letterman Lanigan / Honda) - 85 laps
P24 224.439 Ed Carpenter (Carpenter / Chevy) - 78 laps
P25 224.398 Rinus VeeKay (Carpenter / Chevy) - 74 laps
P26 224.389 Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan / Honda) - 77 laps
P27 224.363 JR Hildebrand (AJ Foyt / Chevy) - 82 laps
P28 224.305 Stefan Wilson (DragonSpeed / Chevy) - 88 laps
P29 224.193 Juan Pablo Montoya (McLaren / Chevy) - 40 laps
P30 224.084 Kyle Kirkwood [R] (AJ Foyt / Chevy) - 91 laps
P31 223.587 Felix Rosenqvist (McLaren / Chevy) - 78 laps
P32 222.856 Dalton Kellett (AJ Foyt / Chevy) - 65 laps
P33 222.553 Devlin DeFrancesco [R] (Andretti / Honda) - 85 laps


Only one more session, the 2-hr Carb Day practice on Friday, before the race.