Chevrolet Dominates Indy 500 Qualifying, Alonso Gets Bumped
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Chevrolet dominated qualifying for the 103rd Indianapolis 500, with Chevy-powered teams claiming four of the top five fastest laps of the day.
Pole position was claimed by Simon Pagenaud, who capitalized on the speed of his Team Penske car to narrowly beat out Ed Carpenter with an average speed of 229.882 mph.
Carpenter was the top qualifier for his team with his average of 229.889 mph. The Ed Carpenter Racing squad has looked fast all week and showed their might in qualifying, with Spencer Pigot’s lap of 229.826 and Ed Jones’ lap of 229.646 proving quick enough to lock out third and fourth, respectively. The fastest Honda was the extremely impressive Colton Herta, who held on for a hair-raising 229.086 lap in his Harding-Steinbrenner entry.
But the story of the day was McLaren Racing’s Fernando Alonso. After qualifying beneath the top 30 on Saturday, the two-time Formula 1 world champion was forced into a six-way shootout for the final three positions on the grid. McLaren then scrambled Sunday morning to get Alonso into the race, striking a deal to get some of Andretti’s highly-regarded dampers and some setup help from Team Penske. The changes weren’t enough, however, and Juncos Racing’s Kyle Kaiser ended up bumping him by just 0.019 mph.
Juncos had scrambled to rebuild Kaiser’s car after the 23-year old suffered a massive crash in practice – the team’s second major setback of the week after its sponsors backed out with short notice. Juncos was one of four small Chevy teams that outperformed the racing behemoth that is McLaren, with Dragonspeed, Marshall-Clauson Racing and Dreyer & Reinbold all putting forth strong efforts to make the tightly contested grid.
Click here for full qualifying results from the 103rd Indianapolis 500. The race will go live at 11 am on Sunday, May 26th on NBC.
Photos via IndyCar
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I am very happy to read this. Appreciate your sharing
INDY is proof that it’s like no other race course in the world and being a part-time driver is more difficult than one might think because Fernando Alonso thought qualifying for this year’s INDY 500 would be a snap; but INDY is a track that deserves respect as you just don’t climb into your car and expect to challenge for a win.
You presume to know what Alonso thinks.
Alonso is a thoughtful person. His team had its hands full with the damage the car received. Incidents that probably made Alonso a bit tentative on the track. There are a lot of contributing factors that go into on track performance and concomitant results.
Hey! At least Pippa made the field.
Second guessing from the stands is of no consequence and just specious, opinionated noise.
Looks like McLaren was not well prepared for Indy. Penske is always ready. Pulling for Ed Carpenter. An American open-wheel race car driver.
Would love to se Ed win it. Would be a long time coming for him!
Mclaren just did not put the time in needed to pull this off. They needed more testing.
To Alonso credit he has Andretti Shocks and Penske Set up put on the car for qualifying and has never tested it before. I suspect his down force was too much and it kept the speed down. We know he can drive and we know the Chevy was fast. It was just the work and testing was not done prior to the race.
I too hope Ed pulls it off. The home town guy with ties to the speedway would make a good story. I don’t want him to be another Scott Brayton who never wins or kills himself trying.
Video about the race you share is very good. Chevrolet dominates the Indy 500 qualifier, which everyone knows about this amazing car.