Oilpressure

First of all, there is a schedule change for Saturday. As suspected, everything has been moved up in anticipation of rain moving in on Saturday afternoon. There is also talk of rain in the early morning, so the schedule change may end up being a moot point. Such is life in central Indiana in May.

The new schedule for Saturday is (all times EDT):

• 8 a.m. – IMS Gates Open
• 8:30-9 a.m. – Practice Group 1
• 9-9:30 a.m. – Practice Group 2
• 11 a.m. – PPG Presents Armed Forces Qualifying begins

This is one of the advantages of everything being on Peacock tomorrow. There is no TV window demanding to be met. It allows a lot more flexibility for situations like this.

As expected, Fast Friday produced a lot of down time with the high winds we experienced all day here. It produced some comfortable moments for the many fans that came here today, but the drivers were not as excited as the fans were.

Fortunately, the winds produced no incidents. This has been an exceptionally clean month so far. I hope it continues. The closest we came was when Jimmie Johnson brushed the wall early in the day.

From early in the day, Alexander Rossi led the day with a one-lap speed of 231.883 mph. That stood as the fast time throughout most of the day, as most teams focused on four-lap qualifying simulations. But in the last hour (Happy Hour), Takuma Sato flexed his muscle and turned a lap at 232.789 mph, and ended the week leading every day of practice.

Is he the favorite for the pole? You would think he’d have to be, but I think there are a lot of drivers who chose not to push the issue.

Mrs. Oilpressure soldiered through most of the day, but a mid-afternoon trip through the pits took it’s toll on her and she went back to the hotel around 4:00. She took some pictures, but they are still in her camera. I took a few shots late in the day, but I guarantee that hers are better.

The shots include Callum Ilott watching practice on the pit monitor, David Malukas getting some fine-tuning (he was seventh-quick on the day), Tony Kanaan getting service, Jimmie Johnson getting interviewed, Devlin DeFrancesco getting his car tended to and many teams tearing down their pits for the day about thirty minutes early. I also got a couple of photos from the post-practice press conference.

I forgot to mention the Top-Five for today. Aside from Sato and Rossi being the two fastest today, Pato O’Ward, Marcus Ericsson and Scott Dixon rounded out the Top-Five today. Other notables included Tony Kanaan eighth quick on the day, Josef Newgarden tenth and Jimmie Johnson seventeenth.

The Rahal cars were twenty-=fourth, thirtieth and thirty-first quick. But they turned very few laps. I think they chose to sit out most of the day, which may have been a wise move.

That will do it for us today. Susan plans to have a post up here either Saturday or Sunday. Depending on the weather, she may have a lot of down time to write. With an 8:30 practice tomorrow morning, we will be here early. Please check back then.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on May 20, 2022 at 6:07 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.