Indy 500 Day 1: Penske & Ganassi set pace amid PREMA issues
- Archie O’Reilly
- 5 minutes ago
- 8 min read
Practice for the 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500 commenced on Tuesday - the first of four full afternoons of running leading up to the two-day qualifying weekend. DIVEBOMB delves into the key stories from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS)...
Weather impacts opening day again
As was the case one year ago, there was a rain delay to kick off Practice 1. It was largely a case of light sprinkles - but even the merest moisture means cars cannot run on ovals.
A familiar waiting game ensued - the biggest jeopardy of the first two hours of what should have been opening practice was Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward being left on hold on a call as he chased down his missing Indy 500 helmets (an issue eventually solved). But over two hours after the intended noon start time, a revised green flag time of 2:20pm was penned.
Lingering raindrops delayed this further before the track finally opened at 2:34pm - over two-and-a-half hours after the scheduled start. There was a threat of more rain later but, until a brief track inspection, there were two hours of uninterrupted running.
Almost three hours of track time - around half of what was planned - was logged before lightning put a premature hold to proceedings with around 30 minutes remaining.
Penske and Ganassi dominate Day 1
The speed charts from Practice 1 were headed by Team Penske, who locked out the front row in 2024 before Josef Newgarden won his second successive Indy 500.
Will Power, winner of the 2018 Indy 500, was the only driver to break the 227 mph barrier on Tuesday, heading the field with a 227.026 mph fastest average lap speed. Newgarden was 0.0097 mph further back with a 226.971 mph quickest lap.
Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) also showed strong, with Álex Palou - the three-time champion who has won four of the first five races this season - the other driver to surpass 226 mph with a 226.673 mph fastest lap.
Palou’s teammate, 2008 Indy 500 winner Scott Dixon, was fourth. Both he and countryman Scott McLaughlin - last year’s pole-sitter for Penske, who again has 2019 Indy 500 winner Simon Pagenaud in his corner as a mentor - narrowly broke the 225 mph mark to round out the top five.
Sixth was a kind-of-CGR car in four-time Indy 500 winner Hélio Castroneves, piloting the No.06 Honda for a Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) team who share a technical alliance with CGR. His teammate Marcus Armstrong was eighth, with the slight anomalies being MSR’s Felix Rosenqvist in 18th and CGR’s Kyffin Simpson in 22nd.
Infiltrating the Penske-CGR-dominated top eight was 2016 Indy 500 winner Alexander Rossi, who has finished in the top five in each of the last four Indy 500s, now racing for the Ed Carpenter Racing (ECR) team - always quick at the Speedway.
It was a strong day for ECR, with Christian Rasmussen 11th and Ed Carpenter - now in an Indy-only situation rather than full oval schedule - in 15th. And on the subject of Indy-only efforts, 500-only team Dreyer & Reinbold Racing showed well 13th and 14th with Jack Harvey and 2014 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay.
Andretti Global rounded out the top 10 with 2022 Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson and Indy-only entrant Marco Andretti. Colton Herta was 16th and Kyle Kirkwood 19th in the team’s other two full-time cars.
It is no doubt too early to ring alarm bells, especially considering run plans from team-to-team varied between solo and pack running, but Nolan Siegel was Arrow McLaren’s best-placed car in 20th. Christian Lundgaard was 23rd, Kyle Larson 24th and O’Ward 29th.
Kirkwood paces early no-tow chart
Many of those lower down the overall order fared better on the no-tow charts, with emphasis for some placed on qualifying simulations.
Kirkwood led the way with a 219.497 mph fastest lap, followed by Newgarden as the two-time defending winner showcased the strength of his car in traffic and running alone. Rookie Jacob Abel logged the third-quickest no-tow lap for Dale Coyne Racing, for whom Rinus VeeKay was a lowly 32nd both on the overall and no-tow speed charts.
Conor Daly piloted his No.76 Juncos Hollinger Racing (JHR) Chevy to fourth on the no-tow charts, followed by Rossi, McLaughlin, O’Ward, Simpson and Castroneves.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) rookie Louis Foster was 10th and the final driver to break the 218 mph no-tow mark. He was followed by teammates Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato, quelling concern at the best-placed RLL car on the overall speed charts being in 25th following a positive April test.
A tough first practice for PREMA
It was a challenging first-ever Indy 500 practice day for the PREMA Racing team debuting in IndyCar this year. Having used their road course cars in last month’s test, their two speedway cars were not ready for the start of practice - even after the rain delay.
Callum Ilott, who has history for being somewhat underprepared having made the field in 2023 despite a last-minute chassis change at JHR, was the first PREMA car eventually on track. But the Briton did not appear in pit lane until the final two hours, with rookie Robert Shwartzman even later to the party.
By the time Shwartzman logged his installation lap just before the final hour - ultimately curtailed anyway by weather - Ilott only had three laps on the board. Rookie Shwartzman, who along with the team has no oval experience, ended the session with only six laps and Ilott with 16 laps. They were 33rd and 34th in the 34-driver field.
After his heavy crash in the test, there was also a delay in Sato getting out on track in his completely new RLL machine. But he appeared in the second hour of running and logged 29 laps - competitive on the no-tow chart.
The most productive driver of the day was sophomore Simpson with 84 laps completed, followed by Rasmussen’s 75 and Power’s 73 laps. Siegel (69) and Newgarden (63) rounded out the five drivers to have logged more than 60 laps.
At the opposite end, only the PREMA pair logged fewer laps than Castroneves (25) and AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci (21), who has never finished outside the top 10 in the Indy 500. Ferrucci was 27th overall and 28th on the no-tow speed charts.
Rossi balancing new fatherhood
Unbeknown to the wider world, Rossi became a father for the first time - to son Ben - on the Wednesday leading up to the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
“We didn’t tell anyone because why would we?’ he said. “It’s been a pretty awesome journey. Wednesday was an unbelievable experience - more so than I could have imagined. So it was really special. It was very cool. Very thankful for [wife] Kelly. Ben has been awesome.
“Kelly was convinced we were going to have a girl so she had like 40 girl names. We agreed upon one and we kind of had a boy name. And then when we found out it was a boy, we were like: ‘Well, we don’t really have any other options so that’s it.’”
Rossi’s first venture into fatherhood has fallen at the busiest point in the IndyCar year. But he is managing everything effectively.
“It’s pretty straightforward because we had nine months, as it works, to plan for this,” he said. “Obviously May isn’t the time you would choose but it is what it is. [Kelly’s] mum is here from Toronto. It’s actually in some ways an advantage because I’m 25 minutes down the road [being at IMS].
“So while it’s the busiest time for us in terms of the biggest race in the world, July would have been a lot worse. We’re managing it. It’s fine. My priority for 70-80 percent of the day is here. And the rest of the time that I can give, I will give at home.”
On track, in the top 10 on both the overall and no-tow charts, it has been a strong start for Rossi.
“We just validated the car that we built in the Open Test,” he said. “There were some small technical issues we were working through but the good thing is the car balance is as expected and the speed of it seems okay. It felt good in the couple laps we got.”
A “smooth” start to May for Larson
Fresh off victory at Kansas Speedway in the NASCAR Cup Series last weekend, Larson was back in the Indy car on Tuesday as preparations for his second attempt at ‘The Double’ of the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 continue.
“It doesn’t seem any different,” the ever-unflappable Larson said of being in his second year at Indy. “It’s just practice. It’s not a huge deal. Last year was just practice. as well. You have plenty of time to make some laps.
“Our day was good. Took it easy to start in clean air, made sure our balance was comfortable, which it was so was happy about that. Then at the end, finally got in some traffic and, as normal, had some understeer.
“But happy with the first day. It was a nice smooth day. Good place to start from.”
It was Larson’s first outing in the Indy car since crashing on the second day of the April test. He built his comfort levels back up through the day before ending the day with limited laps in one of the packs of cars.
“I was in the front two or three cars,” he said. “I felt balance-wise okay, just a little bit draggy. I felt like people could pass me earlier down the straight than when I would pass them. We could work on that probably and work on the balance maybe a little bit.
“But I could also do some things differently in the cockpit. I was more so just trying to hit my marks today than worry about adjusting on things. I’m not touching that thing [the weight jacker] for qualifying.”
While Indy is his focus until then with “a lot to get refamiliarised with”, if Larson makes the Fast Six at the weekend, he may have to forgo a pole attempt to travel to North Wilkesboro for NASCAR’s All-Star Race.
“No matter through this whole experience, especially this year, Cup should be the priority,” he said. “I just assume we’re going to run the All-Star Race no matter what. Hopefully we run into that predicament because that means our car is fast.
“It would be extremely nice to go for the pole at the Indianapolis 500 but, at the same time, it’s hard to turn down an opportunity to race for a million dollars.”
Ericsson in “a good spot” already
After a challenging Indy 500 campaign in 2024 after a Thursday crash necessitated a chassis change, which ultimately led to Ericsson contesting in Last Chance Qualifying and being caught up in a Lap 1 crash, it has been a positive start to the 2025 running.
“We continued where we left off in the Open Test a couple weeks ago and I thought the car was really good,” he said. “We had a good car in traffic. It was a smooth day running through the programme and already in a place where I’m pretty happy with how it feels.
“To be there on Day 1, it’s a good spot because then you can really work on just the finer details instead of having to make big swings at things.”
Kanaan session added to Day 2
The weather impact on Tuesday meant 2013 Indy 500 winner, now Arrow McLaren team principal, Tony Kanaan was unable to run the planned Refresher session should he be required to step in for Larson on race day.
That session has been rescheduled for 10am ET (3pm BST) on Wednesday - a two-hour slot before all-car running continues from 12pm ET (5pm BST) for a further six hours. There is a dedicated 15-minute window from 6pm ET (11pm BST) for pit stop practice.
