What happened on the opening day of Indy 500 practice

Team Penske’s Will Power went fastest on the opening day of Indianapolis 500 practice, as multiple delays for rain curtailed running.

The Indianapolis 500 returns to its very traditional home in May for 2021, having been delayed to August last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The opening day – the first of four days of practice before qualifying on Saturday – was split into three with a two-hour session starting at 1000hrs ET, then a session exclusively for rookie orientation/refreshers and finally another general practice of 1 hour 50 minutes open to all drivers to finish the day (and shortened from three hours because of the rain).

As the temperatures in Indianapolis rose, the times tumbled on track in the final session of the day with 2018 Indy 500 winner Power recording his 226.470mph lap with 39 minutes remaining.

That effort unseated Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay, the 2014 winner, from the top of the order, with last year’s winner Takuma Sato of Rahal Letterman Lanigan rounding out the top three.

Sage Karam was one of the stars of the day in one of the few Indy 500 only IndyCar teams, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, which  usually fields two cars. Competitive esports regular Karam drove its sole 2021 entry to fourth fastest.

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Best no-tow times:

1 Ed Carpenter 219.162mph
2 Scott Dixon 219.024mph
3 Conor Daly 219.024mph
4 Max Chilton 219.013mph

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In the no-tow rankings – a key category at Indianapolis that provides a hint at possible qualifying pace where drivers take to the track alone – Ed Carpenter was the star of the day for his eponymous team, fastest in this area in both the morning and afternoon.

His team-mate Conor Daly – fifth fastest in the pm session and with a massive 239.400mph speed recorded just before Turn 1 – was third fastest in the no-tow rankings behind ninth-fastest overall Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing.

The top four no-tow times were faster than Carpenter’s morning session benchmark, Carlin’s Max Chilton being the fourth fastest in this category in the late session.

Chilton has had an eventful fortnight having missed the Indianapolis road course race last weekend due to travel issues from his native England. Then on his first flying run on Tuesday, his air hose disconnected from his helmet and the car and wrapped around his rear wing (visible above).

Sato’s team-mate Graham Rahal went fastest in the opening session, recording a lap of 223.449mph ahead of Dixon and Team Penske’s event rookie Scott McLaughlin.

After that session, RC Enerson (below) was the only driver needing to complete the rookie course – most had done this at the pre-season Indy 500 open test – for the new Chevrolet-powered Top Gun Racing team, but a bearing issue halted his progress. The Race understands Enerson is yet to complete the rookie orientation and will need to do that tomorrow.

JR Hildebrand and Stefan Wilson hadn’t competed in an oval race since at least last year’s Indy 500, so that automatically meant those drivers had to do a refresher course.

Wilson is in his first 500 since 2018 – for the same team, Andretti Autosport – while The Race IndyCar Podcast host Hildebrand ended a three-event partnership with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing to join AJ Foyt Enterprises, racing a car liveried in honour of Foyt’s 1961 500 victory, 60 years ago.

The day did not go according to plan for all teams although there were no crashes.

Now regular IndyCar frontrunner turned bad luck specialist Meyer Shank Racing required an almost immediate Honda engine change, and missed three hours while a new unit was installed.

Sebastien Bourdais, who was taken out of both Texas races earlier this month, slowed to halt with just over an hour of the day to go with smoke blooming from the rear of his Chevrolet-powered AJ Foyt entry.

Simona de Silvestro – 2010 Indy 500 rookie of the year – was the second busiest driver in the afternoon for the new Paretta Autosport team, formed with the aim of helping women find role models and careers in motorsport.

De Silvestro was one spot shy of being the second highest place new or one-off entry for what is IndyCar’s blue-riband event, as two-time winner Juan Pablo Montoya was 12th quickest in what will be his first 500 with Arrow McLaren SP and first for anyone since 2017. Karam was the best of the one-off/new entries for the event.

Practice resumes on Wednesday with a single session from 1200-1800hrs (ET) open to all drivers.

Practice 1 Results

Practice 2 Results