Day 1 - Indy 500 test: What are teams trying to achieve?

Credit: James Black

One of the most anticipated days of the IndyCar year, cars returned to the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval on Tuesday to commence on-track preparations for next month’s 110th Running of the Indianapolis 500.

The two-day open test began with two hours of running for veterans, before a two-hour opportunity for Rookie Orientation Programme (ROP) and refresher sessions for those who have not run an oval race since last year’s Indy 500. Four hours of all-car running followed, offering the opportunity for bigger groups of cars to engage in traffic running.

DIVEBOMB presents the story of the opening day of test running and what the 33 team-driver combinations are trying to learn from the April outing…

ROP & refreshers: Issues for Legge

The most important tick-box of the day came at midday track time, with rookies and those returning for the first time since last year’s Indy 500 given an opportunity to run through a three-phase programme to confirm their eligibility for May’s proceedings. 

First, to demonstrate car control, drivers had to complete 10 laps between 205 mph and 210 mph, then 15 laps between 210 mph and 215 mph and finally 15 laps above 215 mph.

Seven of the nine drivers completed the programme within the allotted time. Dennis Hauger only managed the first two phases of his ROP for Dale Coyne Racing (DCR), though he was able to complete this in the later all-skate session. Meanwhile, Katherine Legge failed to log a lap amid clutch and brake issues with her HMD Motorsports-AJ Foyt Racing entry.

This meant Legge was unable to partake in the remainder of the day’s running, losing four hours of track time. She will require a special session planned for, weather permitting, midday on Wednesday - meaning two more lost hours of all-car running - to pass her refresher.

Credit: James Black

Jack Harvey was the session’s pace-setter for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing (DRR) ahead of Meyer Shank Racing (MSR)’s Hélio Castroneves. Fellow veteran Ed Carpenter was fourth for his own team, while Arrow McLaren’s Ryan Hunter-Reay similarly passed the refresher programme without issue and placed sixth.

Rookie Jacob Abel was third in the session for Abel Motorsports and, along with fifth-placed Caio Collet for Foyt and eighth-placed Mick Schumacher for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL), progressed through the rookie programme smoothly.

“Personally, I probably would have done it anyways, slowly getting in and making my way to the speed,” Schumacher said of the ROP session. “So I didn’t really feel like I needed a specific target. Actually when I went a bit quicker, people were a bit upset. 

“Essentially, I feel like this is not a totally new experience. We had Phoenix; I did the test in St. Louis. I feel like I had a good amount of knowledge of ovals. Obviously [testing at] Homestead is the closest it comes to here in some ways. I thought it was very straightforward, very nice for me to get going and get comfortable quickly.”

Hauger and Collet proved the standout rookies on the end-of-day speed charts in 14th and 15th overall, with the latter logging a field-high 138 laps.

DRR show well as Daly leads

The opening day of running was paced by Dreyer & Reinbold Racing’s Conor Daly, who along with Castroneves was one of only two drivers to break the 225 mph barrier during tow-heavy traffic running late in the all-stake session.

Takuma Sato followed in the order for RLL, ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR)’s Scott Dixon, Ed Carpenter Racing (ECR)’s Alexander Rossi and DCR’s Romain Grosjean as the four other drivers to log laps at over 224 mph. 

Credit: Paul Hurley

David Malukas, Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden followed in a Team Penske train, though the latter ran only eight laps in the final four hours, placing 31st, after topping the morning session. Former Penske driver Will Power rounded out the top 10 for Andretti Global, ahead of Santino Ferrucci for the Penske-adjacent Foyt team in 11th.

In the second Indy-only DRR entry, Jack Harvey took the no-tow honours for the day, ahead of Andretti’s Kyle Kirkwood, then four-time Indy 500 winner Castroneves and his MSR teammate Felix Rosenqvist. CGR’s Kyffin Simpson was fifth, ahead of Daly, Rossi and Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard.

The CGR duo of Álex Palou and Dixon completed the top 10, with defending winner Palou 16th overall with only 51 laps on the board.

Collet (138) and Carpenter (120) were the only drivers to log a century of laps, with Schumacher one shy of 100 with 99 laps recorded. Hauger (95), Grosjean (92) and Sato (92) also broke the 90-lap mark, while Hunter-Reay (87), Malukas (82), Arrow McLaren’s quickest driver of the day, Nolan Siegel (83), and Harvey (80) logged 80 or more.

At the opposite end, Legge (no laps), Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Sting Ray Robb (25 due to an engine change), Daly (40), Kirkwood (41), Dixon (46) and Rosenqvist (48) failed to breach the half-century mark. Abel recorded only one lap in the afternoon.

While there were a number of brief stoppages for debris and one marginally longer break for weepers, the only on-track issue for a car came in the final half-hour, when ECR’s Christian Rasmussen stopped off Turn 2 with a supposed loose tyre, requiring a tow-in.

Credit: James Black

“Eliminating the big items”

The open test serves as something of an extension to Month of May proceedings. But with two weeks still remaining until Indy 500 practice gets underway, with changes in conditions possible in that period, the goals of the test differ a little to the start of the May fortnight.

“The test is really about eliminating the big items, eliminate some really large changes and some directions that you think might be good but they might not once you put it on the car,” Daly explained to DIVEBOMB last week. “There’s a lot of simulation data that looks like certain things could be faster but you don’t really know until you actually put it on the car. 

“So a lot of the bigger changes, whether it’s wheelbases or geometries or very long changes, fundamental setup changes. It’s just a matter of getting through some of those test items and and go from there and basically eliminate stuff before we get to May. Narrow your vision.”

While Daly welcomely topped the speed charts on Day 1, in all likelihood he is realistic enough to realise that a tow-assisted time-topping lap is not the be-all and end-all.

“You just go day-by-day,” he said last week. “For me, it’s about not focusing on the result every day. You’re just building up, you’re just putting pieces of the puzzle together. One day at a time, you’re going to figure out what pieces you’ve got. 

“You’re going to figure out the best-shaped pieces to fit in the right little segments. And your goal is by race day, you have that puzzle complete and you’re able to do the best job you can with it. And honestly, the results take care of themselves.”

Credit: Walt Kuhn

Finding comfort key for drivers

Alongside finding a more specific direction for May, another focus for drivers is getting accustomed to their cars. That is particularly pertinent to any debutants or those who may have changed teams, such as Malukas.

“More just getting comfortable, making sure everything with the car is up to par, that there’s no issues,” he said of his focus after a strong first day at the Speedway with Penske. “It’s honestly a very chill two days but we can get a lot of that early baseline setup changes done.

“It’s just tough because right now the weather is not very correlated to how it’s going to be come Month of May. [But] there’s no need to panic. Obviously for me, I feel like I’m surrounded by the best of the best when it comes to engineers and mechanics. They’ll always make sure to remind me to stay calm. 

“More the heavy setup changes, quali, all that, we’re going to save that for the Month of May. At least now, we can run through the checklist, make sure everything is working as it should so when we come back we have full confidence to go straight into it.”

Maybe above all, avoiding any incident is paramount at this early stage. That is wisdom already imparted on Schumacher as he makes his first appearance at the Speedway.

“One of those important, key messages that I’ve been told since starting on an oval has always been whenever something doesn’t feel right: ‘Come in and we’ll fix it,’” he said. “[At one point], it didn’t feel exactly the way it should have; it felt a little light on the rear specifically. Rightfully so, we came in and saw that there was an issue on the car.”

Credit: Joe Skibinski

Overnight and early-morning rain is possible, but should things run as planned, all cars will return on track for the second day of the test at 10:00 ET (15:00 BST) for two hours, with the exception of Legge, who is slated to run her refresher at noon ET (17:00 BST). 

The test will then conclude with four final hours of running from 13:00 ET (18:00 BST).