Oilpressure

What if they had a Last Row Shootout, and no one seemed to want to make it. That was the impression fans got in the first four runs of the session.

Nolan Siegel actually put up a commendable speed of 229.566 mph. Marcus Ericsson was next and was putting up a respectable speed, but he did what a few others have done in history – he lifted after crossing the line after taking the white flag.

While fans were bewildered, wondering how such a thing could happen – I understand how it can. There are so many things going on in your head, the last thing you are thinking about is the lap count.

Katherine Legge was next and her car was very nervous as she came close to hitting the wall a couple of times. Graham Rahal was the final car to make an initial run, and his car was more nervous than Legge’s.

After a cool-down period, Marcus Ericsson took to the track with seven minutes to go in the session. His fist lap was an unspectacular 230.672 mph. It predictably dropped throughout the run, and the last two laps were in the 229 range. But his four-lap average of 230.027 was not only good enough to bump his way in over Siegel, it put him in the middle of the eleventh row, moving Graham Rahal to the bubble.

With two minutes to go, Siegel began his run. If he successfully bumped Rahal, the nineteen year-old rookie would be in the field – leaving Rahal with no time left to retaliate, the second time in the same amount of years that he would be faced with such a situation.

Siegel’s first lap was not good – in the 228-range. He knew it was time for an all-or-nothing lap. Unfortunately, the young rookie brushed the wall on the exit of Turn One. He did his best to collect it, but the car went around and the car came to a rest in the short chute at the south end.

Credit Graham Rahal for his reaction when Siegel crashed. Yes, he shook hands with his team, but he made sure to give nothing but praise to Dale Coyne and to Siegel. He made sure that fans knew that they would be hearing a lot from Siegel in the very near future.

He also took a shot at some team, perhaps his own, when he said that he would not celebrate because when he saw other celebrating, it further rubbed salt in the wound. Was that teammate Jack Harvey’s team he was referring to?

I feel for Siegel, but to be honest – he was the one out of the four that I wanted to go home. His time will come, but I wanted the other three to make it for various reasons.

Very quickly, I watched the Fast Six pole run as I was typing this. Congratulations to Team Penske for sweeping the front row. That’s only the second time that has been done. The other time was in 1988, by…you guessed it – Team Penske. Then it was Rick Mears, Danny Sullivan and Al Unser. Today, it was pole winner Scott McLaughlin with a four-lap average of 234.220 mph, Will Power and Josef Newgarden.

Alexander Rossi was intent on breaking up the all-Penske front-row, but he would have to settle for starting on the inside of Row Two. His Arrow McLaren rookie teammate, Kyle Larson, will start alongside in the middle of Row Two; while crowd favorite Santino Ferrucci put his AJ Foyt Chevy on the outside of Row Two.

The Top-Eight cars were Chevys. Felix Rosenqvist was the fastest Honda at 232.305 mph, which was only good enough for outside the third row.

It was an emotion-filled press conference, with Rahal and Siegel sitting next to each other at one end of the table; with the three Penske drivers sitting next to each other at the other end. In a classy move, Rahal and Siegel left the press conference, with Rahal putting a consoling arm around Siegel.

That’s going to do it for us. We are going to get out of here and head back to Nashville. I will work for four days, and we will head back up here on Thursday night to attend Carb Day practice. I will have a Random Thoughts post on Monday, and will continue to post every day in May through the race. Thanks for following along all weekend, and through the disjointed week of practice.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on May 19, 2024 at 5:27 pm and is filed under Indianapolis 500. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.