High Drama on Day One
I’ve not been a huge champion of this current qualifying format, but I will say this about it – it does produce a lot of drama. There was drama at both ends of the spectrum in the last fifteen minutes of today’s qualifications.
Rinus VeeKay experienced the highest range of emotion. First he crashed on his warmup lap and tore his car up pretty badly. He didn’t do himself any good either, as he was noticeably limping on his way to the ambulance.
Credit his Ed Carpenter Racing team for thrashing the car back together in five hours. He worked at it and made it into the field…barely. He was holding on at twenty-ninth, just one away from the cut-off that would put him in tomorrow’s Last Row Shootout.
With less than five minutes remaining, VeeKay made a fifth run for the day to strengthen his position. Did he ever? He moved from barely getting locked into the field at twenty-ninth to the eleventh fastest time of the day. His 232.419 mph was good enough to put him into the Firestone Fast Twelve that will run for the pole tomorrow.
At the other end is Graham Rahal. For the second year in a row, Rahal will have to fight it out in the Last Row Shootout. He has inexplicably lost speed for the last couple of days and finds himself in a bind. He made four qualifying attempts, but could never crack into the Top-Thirty. I feel for Rahal, and personally – I hope he can make his way into the field tomorrow.
Joining Rahal in the Last Row Shootout will the two Dale Coyne cars driven by Katherine Legge and rookie Nolan Siegel; and the 2022 Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson. Two of the four cars are backups due to crashes. Ericsson crashed on Thursday and Siegel on Friday. If I’m guessing, Rahal and Ericsson will make it in, and it’ll be the two Coyne cars battling it out. But it rarely works out that easily. Just ask Fernando Alonso, who was bumped out by Kyle Kaiser in 2019.
What is it about Indianapolis that sees a drivers from Foyt and Dreyer & Reinbold make the Fast Twelve, and not a single Ganassi car does? Well, when nine of the Fast
One team that did not experience any drama is Team Penske. Even though Josef Newgarden won the race last year, they have not been strong in the Month of May since 2019. That was not the case today. The three Penske drivers posted the three fastest times of the day. Will Power was quickest with a speed of 233.758 mph.
They also suffered none of the issues that many Chevy teams experienced – the dreaded plenum fire. At least six Chevy drivers experienced inopportune Plenum fires on their qualifying runs, effectively ending the run.
The first to experience it was Kyle Larson, who had a great run going through three laps, before a hiccup on his fourth and final lap. The most visible was when Augustin Canapino had a great run going that could have put him in the Fast Twelve. Instead he had the dreaded plenum hiccup. He is now locked into the inside of the eighth row. After Canapino exited the car, he tossed his helmet in disgust.
After qualifying was over, Chevy officials met the media. They said these engines have been developed over the years and are pretty well maxed out. Then when you increase the boost for qualifying, there is just that much more stress on the engines. They were certain that there would be no plenum fires next Sunday in the race. If you recall, Chevy driver Pato O’Ward had a plenum fire at St. Petersburg last year, and his engine had no extra boost. The Chevys are obviously faster, but the Honda may be more reliable come Race Day. It is certainly something to watch tomorrow and next week.
Plenum fires may prevent a driver from winning the pole, but they shouldn’t keep someone out of the race; as all four cars in the Last Row Shootouts are Hondas.
That will do it for us today. Sunday promises to be wild. Someone is going home, and I still have to think it is Nolan Siegel. A nineteen year-old rookie in a backup road course car is a tall order. If he can make his way in tomorrow, my hats off to him.
As usual, I will close with more photos that Susan took today. We will be here in the morning, please check back then.
George Phillips
Oilpressure 
May 18, 2024 at 7:13 pm
Thanks, as always, for the posts from the track.
I can’t stop thinking about this RLL situation. First off, shame on them for having an entire year to improve their issues from last year’s qualifying and yet they hardly improved anything.
Secondly, how bad did Sato make the 3 full time drivers on this team look? I know Fittipaldi is a ride buyer, so expectations are low there, and perhaps Lundgaard hasn’t figured out ovals yet. But goodness, Graham Rahal….what was that? How can Taku be that much better than him? I know, folks will say it’s the time of the day, etc., but we’re not talking about a second and change here. We’re talking about the difference of a guy racing for the pole tomorrow and a guy racing to make the show (for the 2nd straight year). I know it’s easy for me to say sitting from the comfort of my chair, but I can’t help but wonder if Graham just isn’t willing or able to hang it out there anymore to the same extent that Sato has the courage to.