The 2026 Open Test is now in the books. It was a good two-day stretch that saw only a little over an hour lost to weather. Both days were partly sunny, cool and breezy – much like what everyone can experience in a couple of weeks.
I’m not sure how much was learned by a lot of the teams, but given how many were on track for that last hour, it seems that each team had their checklist of things they wanted to learn about their cars. Many teams were not even using the car they will be using for the 500. Reigning champion Alex Palou was using the car he won in at Long Beach. Santino Ferrucci is another driver that was supposedly not using his 500 car. So for a lot of drivers, they were using this opportunity to collect data.
Other teams are trying to get a feel for what they can expect when practice on the oval opens up in less than two weeks. With less than five minutes to go, rookie Dennis Hauger had a moment with traffic going into Turn One. The refresher drivers needed to knock off eleven months of rust, while Hauger and his three fellow rookies probably learned a lot of nuances of the track.
The press conference at the end of the day featured Conor Daly and Takuma Sato. They were asked what I mentioned yesterday regarding the two of them proving you don’t have to run the full season have to be fast at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Daly said something to the effect that while it would be nice to have a fulltime ride, it has been nice to focus strictly on the 500 – but he wouldn’t recommend that for inexperienced drivers.
Katherine Legge did not have a smooth refresher course. An electrical issue prevented her from getting on-track on Tuesday. She was forced to take her refresher during the lunchtime break on Wednesday. She completed two of the three segments, but she had trouble with the final segment and actually had to complete that on-track with the others. Rumor has it that she completed the required speed with the benefit of a tow. I guess that’s acceptable, but I wonder how acceptable that would have been had she not been the thirty-third car.
Unlike many, I am a Katherine Legge fan and I hope she does well. I think she is a competent driver and deserves to be here. But it was a little awkward watching her have so much trouble. One thing I don’t care for is the appearance of her car. I’ve seen what is supposed to be the final livery (below). It looks OK, but her car for the test was in a basic shiny silver with slight trim in pink. It looked awful on track. I could only get a photo of the car in the pits. Hopefully it will look much better in two weeks.
As far as speeds went, the overall fastest time was posted by rookie Caio Collet with a speed of 226.381 mph. That was done in the Wednesday morning session, when it was cloudy and cool. Still that was an impressive feat for AJ Foyt Racing’s rookie driver. Josef Newgarden was second quick over the two-day session with a speed of 226.223 mph, also in the Wednesday morning session. When Conor Daly posted the fastest speed for Tuesday, it still held up as the third fastest speed of the entire test. The remaining drivers that posted the fastest speeds of the two-day tests that rounded out the Top-Ten were Alex Palou, Helio Castroneves, Pato O’Ward, Takuma Sato, Scott Dixon, David Malukas and Alexander Rossi. Six of those ten drivers are former winners, if that little tidbit interests you.
I’m going to end it here. It’s probably now peak rush-hour traffic just beyond those iconic steel stands. I need to get on the road and drive back to Nashville tonight.
Don’t forget that Month of May coverage starts here on Friday May 1, naturally. As usual I will be posting every day in May through Memorial Day. Please come back here on Friday, then every day in May.
I will close with some photos from Wednesday. Is it May yet? It will be Friday.
George Phillips
