Saturday Pre-race from the IndyCar Grand Prix

It's probably gonna be a wet 2019 IndyCar Grand Prix. The rain has tried to start a couple of times in the last hour, the skies are dark grey, and the radar screen has a glob of angry guacamole to our west moving this way. IndyCar has already said that it will change the pre-race grid to leave the cars on pit road in case the rains hit before the rain starts (and the crews need to change tires). In a piece of IndyCar trivia, IndyCar reminds us that if 3 or more teams switch to wet tires then the regular "dry" tire rules won't apply.

We'll know who has what come Tuesday's first oval practice, but the whispers are loud that Fernando Alonso might well be one of the drivers to not make the race. Not only is a single-car one-shot effort, tied with one of the weaker IndyCar teams, but they are not thought to be well organized. Last time, Fernando had the 50+ years of Andretti knowledge behind him, and this year the combined years of experience of everyone will probably not reach 50 years. We'll know more on Tuesday, when practice starts, on just how far behind they are.

Struggling badly on the last few races has been AJ Foyt racing. At the bottom of the speed chart all this weekend, they tell me that the believe that their oval program will be much better. Again, starting Tuesday, we'll know.

Tim Wohlford and Lucille Dust reporting live from IMS