Grand Prix of Indianapolis Saturday Morning Report

Josef Newgarden

Morning practice is over at IMS, and the Chevy domination continues. Stefano Coletti was the fastest of the morning, and Graham Rahal did manage to be 6th fastest, but other than that there were no surprises — Penske / Ganassi domination in Chevys.

Francesco Dracone suffered an apparent engine failure in morning practice, and if so, this would be the second engine failure for Dale Coyne Racing of the weekend. Twelve of the 17 Honda motors are closing into the 2500 mile scheduled limit, with five more running new engines (having previously mile'd out). Dracone would obviously have benefitted from more laps on the course as well.

The possibility of rain would definitely be lower if 17 Honda drivers and their teams weren't praying for rain. Local forecasts are now all over the place, but the average calls for a 50% chance of rain during the race (one is at 96%). Hopefully the worst of the storms will stay away from the facility until after the race, if they hit at all. Currently the worst of the severe weather is centered in St. Louis. I brought a complete change of clothes just in case I get caught in a deluge.

Questions have been raised around the number of cars that have slid past Turn 1, which is located near the oval turn 4. I got to take a ride in a pace car this morning (thank you Chevy!) and the difficulty of the thing was pretty obvious — the cars come off of the straightaway (which has a bit of banking) "sideways" into a flat sharp corner. Even in a street car that "only" hit 125 or so on the front stretch, it was obvious that hard braking and hard turning could quickly go awry, especially on the first lap.

Equally obvious is that a lot of action will take place in turns 7-8-9-10. This is where the cars turn off of "Hulman Blvd" and do their loop around the museum. Turns 12-13 and 14 are important because a fast exit speed from 14 means a lot of top end speed down the main straight.

Word has it that Takuma Sato, like Graham Rahal, is struggling with getting a consistent handling car. He thought he had a great car on Thursday, but by qualification on Friday he was obviously off of the pace with an ill-handling car. Honda had tagged Andretti Motorsports to do the development work on the new aero package, but they are struggling even more than the rest of the Honda teams — Marco Andretti was 23rd fastest (out of 25).

I spent some time in turn 14 for morning practice, and bumped into AutoRacing1 subscriber Ron Hultman. Together with fellow long-time corner marshals Paul Pope and Tim Bosanoz, he volunteering his time just to be part of auto racing. They not only get track side seats and the track safety feed on radio, but have one of the new big screen TV's directly in front of them to watch the action on the rest of the track.
If you want to go to the races, and be part of auto racing, check out your local SCCA club and offer to volunteer at a race. If you're not careful you'll end up in a corner of the track with a white shirt and a bunch of flags sitting in front of you. The pay stinks, but you get in for free and most of the time they have beer after the race, so there's that….

The media were given rides in the new Chevrolet SS. A rebadged Holden VF, the 6.2L motor moves it along with a lot of enthusiasm. We were going a full 125 mph heading deep into the first turn here, and the driver seemed to have a great time sliding the thing around the track. Not bad for a 4-door sedan. If this is considered a family car instead of a sports car, then we are indeed in a golden era of performance.

— Tim Wohlford, reporting from IMS