Dixon 1st, KV Racing drivers 2nd & 3rd at Indy Friday
Dixon recorded the fastest lap of the day, 40.3951 seconds, 222.799 mph, on his fifth lap of the day driving his qualified car. Mario Moraes, who was fastest May 14, was second fastest with a lap of 222.530 mph, also in a qualified car.
The non-qualified car of Townsend Bell and Team Penske front-row teammates Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe rounded out the top five.
Bell, running a second-week sister program to Moraes' car, was the fastest among the drivers who have not yet qualified for the 33-car field. Bell's top lap was 222.139 mph.
Oriol Servia, Robert Doornbos, Alex Tagliani and Tomas Scheckter, making his debut for Dale Coyne Racing, also were non-qualified drivers who turned laps faster than 220 mph on a day that ended 17 minutes early due to loose bricks on the famed Yard of Bricks on the start-finish line.
The final 11 spots in the field of 33 cars (positions 22-33), will be available during Third-Day Qualifying on May 16. Bump Day is scheduled for May 17.
Practice Friday for the Indianapolis 500 IndyCar Series event on the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with position, car number in parentheses, driver, chassis-engine and speed:
1. (9) Scott Dixon, Dallara-Honda, 222.799
2. (5) Mario Moraes, Dallara-Honda, 222.530
3. (8) Townsend Bell, Dallara-Honda, 222.139
4. (3T) Helio Castroneves, Dallara-Honda, 221.699
5. (6T) Ryan Briscoe, Dallara-Honda, 221.567
6. (10) Dario Franchitti, Dallara-Honda, 221.192
7. (17) Oriol Servia, Dallara-Honda, 221.140
8. (20) Ed Carpenter, Dallara-Honda, 221.063
9. (11T) Tony Kanaan, Dallara-Honda, 220.924
10. (06T) Robert Doornbos, Dallara-Honda, 220.804
11. (34T) Alex Tagliani, Dallara-Honda, 220.804
12. (2T) Raphael Matos, Dallara-Honda, 220.781
13. (02) Graham Rahal, Dallara-Honda, 220.677
14. (27) Hideki Mutoh, Dallara-Honda, 220.668
15. (19) Tomas Scheckter, Dallara-Honda, 220.516
16. (4) Dan Wheldon, Dallara-Honda, 220.510
17. (41) A.J. Foyt IV, Dallara-Honda, 220.379
18. (12T) Will Power, Dallara-Honda, 220.255
19. (67) Sarah Fisher, Dallara-Honda, 220.193
20. (7) Danica Patrick, Dallara-Honda, 219.735
21. (44) Davey Hamilton, Dallara-Honda, 219.699
22. (26) Marco Andretti, Dallara-Honda, 219.570
23. (43) John Andretti, Dallara-Honda, 219.551
24. (13) E.J. Viso, Dallara-Honda, 219.530
25. (21T) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Dallara-Honda, 219.517
26. (98) Stanton Barrett, Dallara-Honda, 219.499
27. (99) Alex Lloyd, Dallara-Honda, 219.336
28. (24) Mike Conway, Dallara-Honda, 219.234
29. (91) Buddy Lazier, Dallara-Honda, 219.190
30. (23) Milka Duno, Dallara-Honda, 218.367
31. (00) Nelson Philippe, Dallara-Honda, 217.956
INDYCAR SERIES POST-PRACTICE QUOTES (Drivers who have yet to qualify):
ORIOL SERVIA (No. 17 The Rahal Letterman DAFCA Special): "Interesting day. Yesterday was definitely a relief after all those months trying to put a wheel together and feeling so good and so at home. I think even if the car had been terrible, I would have been happy. Today, the driver's mood was back in it, and you start to feel a little more issues here and there. The driver is never happy with the car. I guess I'm getting back that way. I think the track was a little hotter, and it made it a little bit slicker out there. But it was good. It gave us a chance to work on the car and how I think race conditions are going to be. It was definitely a very good day and everything went according to plan and 100 percent. A very methodical day, and we tried everything we wanted to try. I think we are in very good shape for tomorrow." (About what he must do to qualify): "We just want to have a car in the race, and that's what we've been trying to do. There's so many trying to be the fastest car each day. We will try to be that car. There's at least Townsend (Bell) and (Robert) Doornbos that are going to be up there, and there's always another surprise. It won't be easy. The Rahal Letterman car was great from the beginning. There's no reason why tomorrow we shouldn't be fighting for that top spot"
ROBERT DOORNBOS (No. 06 Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing): "It was our plan to forget about tomorrow (qualifying) and work on the race car, but to be honest, it (qualifying) was always in the back of my mind because we are in a strange situation. We have a fast car, but we are not qualified. You just want to make sure you are in the show and then you start working on the race car. I am quite happy; we found a good car. We ran in traffic and did some good lap times and were in the top 10 at the end of the day, so that's not bad. Obviously, tomorrow morning we have to go back a little bit to qualifying mode. Maybe not as much as we would have done running in the top 11, but yes, you do have to change the mindset a bit. I am comfortable, though."
NELSON PHILIPPE (No. 00 i drive green HVM Racing): "We had a great day just getting back up to speed. Like last week, it's pretty hard to tell who is doing real lap times because everybody was getting tows and running race trim and simulations. So it's very difficult to know where we stand, but we were in race trim ourselves. We ran every time by ourselves and around 3 o'clock, it was really hot. I think the track was 105 (degrees), and we ran almost a 218 flat all on our own. I'm disappointed we finished early because we were going to put some new tires and go for some qualifying sims for tomorrow. But I guess I've got close to 11 hours of testing in, and we got some more practice to get everything sorted. We've been consistent with our times. It's just hard to know where we stand. I'm looking forward to trying to get in the show tomorrow."
TOWNSEND BELL (No. 8 Herbalife-KV Racing Technology): "It was a great day for the Herbalife car. We went pretty quick in the race setup – ran the tires out a couple of times. The car felt really good. I've had the chance to run a couple of times here before, and it's nice. Each time you come a little bit smarter in terms of what you need to have a good run on (race day). I'm pretty happy with where we are. We had a chance to sort of inch our way toward more of qualifying setup on the last run. The car's obviously quick, and I'm really excited about getting it into the field tomorrow."
TOMAS SCHECKTER (No. 19 MONA-VIE): (About returning to the car): "When you're in a car and you're at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it's a good day. I'm just so happy to have Mona Vie on board and to put this together at the last minute with the great people at Dale Coyne Racing. Once again, I'm with Bill Pappas. I'm just happy right now." (About today's practice): "We played around a little bit in the morning. I heard some comments from Justin (Wilson) yesterday, and we worked on a different line of setup, so the car seems great. I think everyone with the team is pretty excited and so am I. The car feels very comfortable, and we had no problems trimming it out. It's a good car; smooth straight out of the pits and flat out."
BUDDY LAZIER (No. 91 Hemelgarn Johnson): "Yes, we did find a little more speed. We're just trying to put all the data together. We really needed that last run (before the track was closed 15 minutes early for repairs). I'm really glad the track errs on the side of caution."
ALEX TAGLIANI (No. 34 Rexall Edmonton Indy): "The team did a fantastic job with the car. We finally had two days back to back where the car was very similar to where we left it last night. After a day of kind of scratching our heads and wondering what's wrong (yesterday), this was a very good day. It was unfortunate during the afternoon we started feeling some vibration and some noise in the back. That's the only little glitch that kept us from trying more things we wanted to try. So, the car feels really good and we are ready for qualifying tomorrow. You can never take anything for granted here in Indianapolis, but we believe that we have a good car and we can put it in the show."
E.J. VISO (No. 13 PDVSA HVM Racing): "I think we had a smooth and consistent day. I'm pretty happy with how it went. We tried some new parts for the race and had a good result. We also know what we're going to improve on the car before qualifying tomorrow so that we have a more consistent run than we did the first qualifying run. The PDVSA HVM Team is confident that we will get into the race in qualifying tomorrow."
MILKA DUNO (No. 23 CITGO/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing): "The car was much better today. We are headed in the right direction. The balance of the car was better and we made some changes and the conditions were good for the car. We will see for tomorrow."
MIKE CONWAY (No. 24 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing): "Today was good. Our first run was just getting back into it again and feeling comfortable with the car. For the second run we went flat around the circuit and made some setup changes. I wasn't really comfortable with the setup we had and we were able to make it back out and made some good changes for tomorrow, so I'm ready for qualifying. I just want to thank the guys for getting the car ready for me. They have done a great job."
JOHN ANDRETTI (No. 43 Window World): "I felt that the day started out pretty good. We have been trying different things. We ran on older tires to try to get a balance so that we can prepare for the race a little bit, but also to help us be ready for qualifying, as well. We'll see what happens. We came out here with a big change that we weren't able to try out, so we will find out tomorrow morning. Hopefully we can get qualified right away, if the weather permits, and get this anguish over with."
STANTON BARRETT (No. 98 CURB/Agajanian/Team 3G Racing): "Not too bad. We get the car feeling better here and there. We keep trying things so we know if mess up on stuff. The most comfortable and the best cars win. We're just trying to piece it all together from gearing to shifting and what I'm doing. We haven't had a lot of runs on sticker tires, back-to–back things. All and all, that got us here, and Team 3G did a good job and everybody's been working really hard on aero stuff and fine-tuning the setup so we can get to where it drives right, steers right. We're making headway on it. Today was a good day. Hopefully we can go out and back that up again even more, fix some of our mistakes. Hopefully the setup is as good as it was this morning and when we went out in the first half an hour of practice. Hopefully we can go out tomorrow and do the same thing as good from a steering standpoint. Hopefully we can get some speed, enough to make the race."
INDYCAR SERIES POST-PRACTICE QUOTES (Drivers who have already qualified):
SCOTT DIXON (No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing): "Any day you can be quick is a good day. It doesn't mean much because it was a practice day. It will mean more on Race Day. We had a three-or-four-car tow. The car was feeling pretty good. It (speed increase) could be a range of different things. We just have to look at it. It's important to be among the top six or seven for the whole month; that's what we've been trying to do. More importantly, we just want to make sure we have a consistent car.
We're working pretty much the same as everybody – get the most out of the race car, making the car consistent and working in traffic. We've been trying our setups all around from lunch time through this afternoon. The car seemed pretty good, but we're still looking for a little more consistency in traffic.
Any day you can get on the track is very important, with the condensed schedule and with the weather we have here in May is always very tough. Hopefully we can get some more laps in this weekend. I'm sure everyone is going to be out here running as many laps as possible."
MARIO MORAES (No. 5 KV Racing Technology/Votorantim): "Today was another very productive day for the KV Racing Technology – Votorantim team. We worked on different race setups again today and the car felt solid. Only once did we have a problem with the rear. Unfortunately, on my last lap, I went across the start/finish line and sucked up a brick, which damaged my car and ended my day. I feel bad for the crew because they are going to have to do some extra work tonight."