After 4 hours, with 2 hours left, here's where they stand. Now we have a better idea of what we'll see tomorrow.

Looks like the Carpenter team is fine. Takuma Sato has the fasteset 1-lap speed at 234.753 mph, but he said it was clear that they had too little downforce and he abandoned that run and set his fast 4-lap average on another run.

Illott's team finally decided to give up on his car and switch to a backup car (the car that his teammate Canapino used at the recent open test). So they need to build the car and they'll be going into tomorrow cold.

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Posted by TouchedTheAxeIn82

near the Apple spaceship

Member since Nov 2012

5673 posts

Posted on 5/19/23 at 7:15 pm to TouchedTheAxeIn82

OK, at the end of Fast Friday, here's where we're at. Everyone ran with qualy boost and it was all about doing simulated 4-lap qualy runs. Late in the session the temperatures came down, and as expected, Ganassi and Penske showed great speed, with two from each team going faster than 233 mph in their four-lap average qualy sim runs. Scott Dixon did a late run but had a problem and finished below where everyone expected him to be.

(The dopey IndyCar site only posted the one-lap speeds for the session results. I got most of the 4-lap info directly from the TV screen during the session, but confirmed the final numbers thanks to David Land's video.)

The top four guys on single-lap speed, Takuma Sato (234.753), Marco Andretti (234.202), Rinus VeeKay (234.171), and Marcus Ericsson (234.029), all had the fastest practice laps since 1996. That was the first year of the CART/IRL split, but they still used the CART cars/engines for one last time.

It's clear that Team Rahal is on shaky ground. All four of their drivers are near the bottom of the chart. Also, as I mentioned, Juncos Hollinger decided to swap Callum Illott's car with the chassis that his teammate Canapino used in the recent open test. They only started the engine swap near the end of the day, so they will be going into Saturday cold. Canapino is in good shape on the chart, so if the car swap and setup goes well, Illott might be in fine shape for tomorrow.