Oilpressure

Good morning from a slightly damp and muggy Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I say damp to describe the concession areas and the area behind the Pagoda. The track itself underwent drying procedures earlier this morning. Although practice was delayed from the original 8:00 start, there was a very abbreviated practice that session that got underway at 8:45. There were only eleven takers, including only an installation lap by Simon Pagenaud where he only did 137.494 mph.

Helio Castroneves was the quickest at 229.505. Graham Rahal was one of the drivers that ran this morning, but he only did a 225.293. That’s hardly enough to calm his fears that he may be one of those on the bubble today. His lack of speed this month has been puzzling, at best. There was a question this morning wondering if he doesn’t make the race, if he would buy his way in when his father chose to remain on the sidelines in 1993.

There was an unfounded rumor making the rounds on social media last night saying that bumping would be done away with, due to the James Davison incident yesterday. When I first saw it, I was outraged. But it was quickly dispelled as myth and was apparently started by someone who has been against bumping ever since we knew that there would be more than thirty-three cars entered. Why this continues to be an issue is beyond me. Wondering who will be going home at the end of the day has created more buzz on a Saturday than I’ve seen since they developed this new format. If they decided to let everyone race, there would be no buzz at all today.

There was a major announcement for the future of the Verizon IndyCar Series this morning with Jay Frye and representatives from Honda and Chevy at the table. The engine formula beginning in 2021 will switch to 2.4 L displacement up from 2.2 L. They will  still be twin-turbocharged V-6 engines, but the horsepower is expected to increase to roughly 900hp. This looks like the perfect scenario for a third engine manufacturer to make plans to enter at that time.

Qualifying is about to begin. Zachary Claman De Melo is scheduled to be the first on track. The bottom of the charts will be just as interesting to watch today as the Top-Nine, with bumping and setting tomorrow’s Fast-Nine.

Please check back throughout the day. Susan will be posting an article this afternoon, and I’ll have some updates throughout the afternoon. For instant updates as well as photos and videos, please follow me on Twitter at @Oilpressureblog and Susan at @MrsOilpressure. Please check back later and throughout the day.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on May 19, 2018 at 10:04 am 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.