In Wednesday practice for the Indianapolis 500, a Honda would top the charts for the first time during the week. Carlos Munoz, driving for Andretti Autosport, would top the charts with a lap of 39.1098 seconds. In his previous two starts in the big race, he has finished in the top-five.
“I feel really good in this place, so it feels nice,” he commented. “What I really, really want to do is win the 500. It’s nice to be first in practice and everything, of course. We are working hard at the 500. I’m just 23 now. I have a lot of years to try and win it.”
Townsend Bell would time in second quickest as he is making a one-off start in the Greatest Spectacle of Racing.
“It was good,” he commented. “We’re staying in a tight little box, being a single-car program, only event of the year so far with the team. Trying to be pragmatic and just stay focused on the fundamentals. So far, so good. We hit the track pretty reasonable, thanks to Davey Hamilton for shaking down the car (on opening day May 3), I was in Monterey for a (sports car) race. Davey did a nice job to just work out the bugs for us and we were able to hit the ground running when we got here.”
Tony Kanaan was third quickest in his entry for Chip Ganassi Racing as the organization continues to show speed since sweeping the top-three spots earlier this week.
“Another good day for NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing,” he said. “We were able to get some long runs in and we got some solid data to build on. We also were able to get in some runs working with Dixon during that last hour that helped us find a few more things we need to work on. The car has felt really good out there these first three days of practice, so I’m excited to see how much better we can make it before qualifying this weekend.”
James Davison was fourth quickest, followed by CGR teammates Sage Karam and Scott Dixon. Team Penske continued to show speed with Simon Pagenaud and Will Power sitting seventh and eighth, respectively. Marco Andretti and James Hinchcliffe would round out the top 10.
The day did not go without incident, though, as the session was marred with a pair of wrecks.
Helio Castroneves would get loose off of turn two, making contact with the outside wall as the car spun around, before flipping over. He would be uninjured in the incident.
“The (car) was definitely fast; we were even taking off,” Castroneves commented. “Not the way we would want to take off. I have to thank all the messages from the fans of encouragement, and to Team Penske to put a car together and be back out there again. The car was impressive. You can’t be scared when you go out there. I didn’t want to wait to run until tomorrow, and now we’ll focus on Thursday and Friday.”
As Castroneves mentioned, he returned later in the session behind the wheel of a back-up entry, posting a lap quicker than 225 mph.
“I think the ability of the team in five hours to put that (back-up) car together – we had to take the engine out of one car and take a lot of the pieces off – and get out for a few laps says a lot,” Roger Penske commented. “It looks like we’re competitive; we ran 226 (mph). To me, it’s a good start for tomorrow.”
Penske added that they will investigate the situation and see what happened to make the car go airborne.
“You’re always concerned when a car gets backwards; it looks a little bit like NASCAR the way the thing went up and went over,” he added. “You can only test so much in your simulations and in a small wind tunnel, and I think this is something good to know now because we can look at it and see what are the right things to help all the cars that are on the track.”
Pippa Mann also made contact with the wall after she got loose off of turn four.
“Our first runs went really well today at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway,” she said. “We started where we left off yesterday, and the handling of the Dale Coyne Racing car supporting Susan G. Komen was improving, and our speeds were looking decent. We dialed in on the set up, and I was getting more comfortable and gaining speed.
“We were getting some great traffic runs in, and then late this afternoon, it unfortunately went wrong as I caught the big pack heading into Turn 4. The cars in front of me checked up so dramatically that coming fully off throttle didn’t take enough speed out of the car. As I went for the brakes, I also had to take to the grey on the outside of 4, and that’s not a fun place to end up on the race track. For a few moments I almost thought I was going to escape unscathed, but then the angle of the slide hit the point of no return. After the first hit, I knew the pit entrance wall would be next, and that was the one that really hurt the racecar.
“I want to thank the safety team and the medical staff for their quick response. When something goes wrong, it’s always reassuring to have those guys by your side so quickly. I have a few bruises, and I’m going to be sore tomorrow, but I’m fine. I really feel for the whole team. They have worked so hard on these race cars, and I hate that I messed one of them up. I know they’ll continue to work hard to get us back out there.”
Practice continues for the Indianapolis 500 on Thursday afternoon.
