O’Ward tops Indy 500 ‘Carb Day’ for Arrow McLaren SP

Arrow McLaren SP driver Pato O’Ward topped the final practice session – ‘nicknamed Carb Day’ – before Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, with the top 25 separated by just over half a second.

O’Ward has been quick throughout practice and was the best Arrow McLaren SP car in qualifying in 15th as the Chevrolet-powered teams struggled to match the Honda-propelled cars.

In the two-hour session, passing appeared to be easier than some drivers have been alluding to in previous running, which bodes well for many of the out of position Chevrolet-powered cars further back, including O’Ward’s team-mate Fernando Alonso.

While both O’Ward and other team-mate Askew were in the top five, Alonso was only 23rd in Carb Day practice and starts the race 26th.

However the times are less important in this session as they can prove unrepresentative, and Alonso appears to have a strong race car watching his onboards from this session.

Alonso used the end of the session to practice pitstops and spent Carb Day working with his spotter from last year, double Indy 500 podium finisher Scott Goodyear.

Behind O’Ward, Scott Dixon is many people’s favourite having qualified second, and he won the first three races of the season for Chip Ganassi Racing.

Dixon was impressive during Carb Day and worked his way forward before settling for second, his car looking quick in traffic.

A number of Andretti Autosport drivers complained about the balance of their cars with understeer, but 2016 winner Alexander Rossi credited his team for the work it has done this week to give him a much-improved car.

He set the third quickest time in Friday practice.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s 2017 winner Takuma Sato has been happy with his balance of the car throughout the month and set the fourth fastest time ahead of Askew who said earlier in the week that he felt his car was as good as anyone’s for overtaking.

Zach Veach was sixth for Andretti Autosport after the team corrected an aerodynamic issue it had through last week, and he headed Penske’s Josef Newgarden who qualified 13th and remains a pick to be a frontrunner for a first Indy 500 win.

Dixon’s Ganassi team-mate Marcus Ericsson was eighth, but racked up an incredible 105 laps in the session, over half Sunday’s race distance.

The ex-F1 driver has one of the best 30-lap averages from the month so far and remains an underdog pick to fight for victory on Sunday.

The Andretti affiliated Meyer Shank entry of Jack Harvey was ninth, ahead of rookie Alex Palou who starts the race on Sunday from seventh.

Last year’s winner Simon Pagenaud – who will start 25th in the Indy 500 – made a late jump up to 14th, while polesitter Marco Andretti was 28th.

Practice 7 Results