Indy 500 Day 3: Newgarden on top as others left searching
- Archie O’Reilly
- 7 hours ago
- 10 min read
The third day of practice for the 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500 has concluded - the final outing for teams before qualifying boost is added for Fast Friday. DIVEBOMB unpicks the key stories from Thursday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS)...
Newgarden heads the field overall
Two-time defending Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden paced practice on Thursday for Team Penske with a 226.632 mph quickest average lap speed.
Plans were split between teams, with many favouring race running but some wanting an early read on their qualifying cars before the extra power is added. Also gaining a strong tow-assisted lap in pack running was Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR)’s Scott Dixon, who had an overnight engine change, in P2 overall with a 225.457 mph fastest lap.
Juncos Hollinger Racing (JHR)’s Conor Daly and Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward were third and fourth as the only other drivers to exceed the 224 mph mark. Ryan Hunter-Reay was fifth for the one-off Dreyer & Reinbold Racing team.
Eight teams made up the top 10, with Colton Herta representing Andretti Global in seventh, Christian Rasmussen for Ed Carpenter Racing (ECR) in eighth and AJ Foyt Racing’s David Malukas in ninth.
Álex Palou was a second CGR representative in sixth, overcoming an early driveshaft issue, and Scott McLaughlin the second Penske in 10th. Will Power was down in 24th in the third Penske car having put more emphasis on qualifying running.
Newgarden & Kirkwood lead no-tows
Newgarden was also the pace-setter on the no-tow charts among those who focused on getting some pre-boost qualifying runs.
Down almost 2 mph from Herta’s 224.182 mph no-tow lap from last year’s Thursday practice, Newgarden set a 222.555 mph quickest average lap speed in this year’s session. Andretti’s Kyle Kirkwood, who was atop the no-tow charts on Tuesday and Wednesday, still holds the quickest no-tow speed of the week (222.760 mph) and was second on Thursday.
McLaughlin, last year’s pole-sitter in a Penske front-row sweep, was third on the no-tow charts, followed by Devlin DeFrancesco as a bright spark on a tricky day in some quarters for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL). Herta was fifth.
Power delivered the sixth-fastest no-tow run, followed by Daly, Andretti’s Marcus Ericsson, JHR’s Sting Ray Robb and RLL’s Takuma Sato.
Marco Andretti, Malukas and Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward also broke the 220 mph no-tow barrier, albeit teams such as Arrow McLaren and Chip Ganassi Racing opted not to focus on qualifying running given the change that comes with the boost.
“We won’t switch over until tonight,” Dixon said. “We feel like it’s just such a big difference from the boost levels that you don’t get to feel too much. It’s actually been nice because we can watch and record and see what’s happening deployment-wise.”
O’Ward agreed that the differences are too significant, with multiple teams using the premium of practice time to further refine their race cars.
“I have done no qualifying stuff,” O’Ward said. “It changes a lot with the boost so it could feel good today trimming-wise, but then tomorrow you put the boost on and you are like: ‘What the hell happened to the car?’
“The boosts really change how the car behaves a lot. It can be as big as I’m loose now, but with the biggest boost, you’re destroying the right front and now you have to understeer. The wall is approaching a lot faster.”
Daly, who was competitive on the no-tow sheets, had a different view.
“There’s always a few runs at the end of Thursday just to get a feel for low downforce,” Daly said. “I can’t remember a year where I haven’t done a couple of qualifying runs just before Fast Friday. It’s just to get yourself ready, get yourself mentally prepared.
“It’s important to at least get a couple of runs and to know where you’re at. Just a quick read on: ‘Hey, are we really struggling or are we actually not in a bad spot?’”
Kanaan completes his refresher
After two days of postponements due to weather, Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan finally got out on track and completed his refresher programme to clear him to replace Kyle Larson if race day is hit with any weather delays.
It was a poignant morning for Kanaan, who is content in retirement and his new leadership role for the papaya team, as he logged his possible final laps of an illustrious career at IMS.
READ MORE: Kanaan’s new IndyCar chapter
Some teams left with more to find
It was a challenging day for a number of cars, with a big disparity between the quickest and slowest in the field. Between Newgarden in P1 and Graham Rahal in 34th, there was over a 7 mph difference.
Rahal, who has been in Last Chance Qualifying in the last two seasons and failed to qualify in 2023, was again unhappy with his RLL machine. There were sizable lifts on qualifying simulations and Rahal remarked on the radio about feeling close to crashing.
“I’ll do that on Saturday but not today,” he said. Teammate Louis Foster, who fared a little better in 26th overall, also provided a sweary radio transmission about similar issues with a sliding rear end of his car - a fundamental issue RLL have been battling.
Santino Ferrucci, who has never finished outside the top 10 in the Indy 500 and finished third in 2023, was another driver in a state of early crisis. Multiple setups were not to the Foyt driver’s liking and, despite improvement with the aid of technical partners Penske, he was still second-last on the speed charts.
Indy 500 and oval debutants PREMA Racing have found some speed after failing to be ready for Practice 1 on Tuesday but drivers Callum Ilott and Robert Shwartzman were still 31st and 32nd overall. A hint of encouragement is Shwartzman’s 219.787 mph no-tow lap for P14.
Disaster avoided for Rasmussen
ECR’s Rasmussen had the biggest on-track moment of the Month of May so far, finding himself high and spinning in Turn 2 on what transpired to be 31-lap old tyres inside the final two hours of Thursday’s running.
The Danish sophomore, who caught the eye with his aggressive driving as a rookie in last year’s Indy 500 en-route to finishing 12th, impressively got the car facing the right direction with only a minor rearwards graze of the SAFER barrier. He did ultimately stop on the backstretch but had very limited visible damage.
It was a disaster avoided given the spin occurred mid-pack, with Larson - the car behind - showing his experience to make the quick decision to keep his car pointing straight rather than diving low.
“Definitely been more difficult,” Dixon said of tyre wear, with Rasmussen having spun on a worn set of tyres. “I think the last six or seven laps of a stint are going to be defining depending on wind conditions, especially if the balance changes quite quickly.
“You can see cars that are pretty comfortable for the first eight-to-10 laps and then start to fall off. We’re adding 120 pounds from last year [with the hybrid system]. With the corners and the G-load, it’s three or four times. It’s a pretty big addition to the car.
“It definitely won’t make it easier. Even on the qual sim, for the four-lap average the degradation can be pretty high if you get pretty greedy on trim levels.”
It was a first incident for Rasmussen at the Speedway despite his gutsy driving style as, yet again, he ruffled feathers with his boldness. Even the usually-calm Nolan Siegel was frustrated over the radio after a late pass: “Rasmussen is such a f**king idiot.”
O’Ward putting heartbreak aside
For O’Ward, returning to IMS means placing aside the anguish of losing out to Newgarden two corners from the end of last year’s Indy 500. But he is not thinking too much about the past.
“I treat it as a new thing every time I come back,” he said. “You can never plan an Indy 500. I just really enjoy it. Obviously as the race starts falling and you see where you are at, that’s where it can get a little bit more interesting or intense.
“But my Indy 500s, they’ve all been different. Last year would be the last one that I would have expected to be fighting but somehow managed a way to get the car there. It’s a really long race. A lot of things can happen but I’m focused on what we can do to put ourselves into a position to win.
“We have a pretty good track record here.”
O’Ward, who revealed he is giving away 300 tickets to those who make purchases over $100 dollars on his online store, believes his Arrow McLaren team still has a bit to find but is in a good enough position after three days of practice.
“In traffic we’ve gotten better but there’s still a handful of other cars that I believe are a lot stronger than we are,” he said. “For some reason my car has never really had the speed in qualifying for the front row.
“It’s never right to panic, even if you might not have the speed the other cars do. Sometimes it’s just unexplainable - and I’ve had to deal with it every single year of qualifying here because all my teammates’ cars have always been quicker than mine.
“I always know that I race really well and putting the car in a decent place in qualifying gives you that opportunity to drive forward. It’s important to qualify well - it’s a cool experience - but it’s not the end of the world.”
Controlled excitement for Indiana’s own
For Daly, who has become accustomed to leading laps in the Indy 500 - a particularly special race for him as an Indiana native - it has been a very strong week.
“I don’t want to get too overly excited,” he said. “These last two days have honestly been two of the most fun days I’ve had here. [The car has] a lot of raw speed. We’re quite competitive in traffic, then our first qualifying run was seventh of the no-tow.
“So I feel pretty decent about that. We haven’t even trimmed as much as the Penske cars. We’re just going to keep our expectations in check. We’re going to keep our belts tightened a little bit and see what happens.”
While he is managing expectations, Daly is acutely aware that he has been on the upper end of the speed charts in successive days now.
“That’s not a mistake,” he said. “If it’s much easier to just pop up there, then you’re probably in a good car. And when you are up with the Ganassis and Penskes, that’s not a bad thing. I feel really good. This isn’t anything like: ‘Oh, we got lucky.’
“Realistically we have got good speed in the car and it’s been awesome to drive in traffic.”
Daly likens the feeling to the ECR car he drove in 2021, which was the best car he believes he has driven at the Speedway.
“It’s a big statement,” he said. “This thing sucks up really well in the tow and it’s just got the ability to race well. I’m not too upset about where we start. It’s just nice to have that confidence. We’ve had a lot of small things go wrong so far this year. When it comes to the speedway car, they’ve done a great job executing and bringing a fast machine.”
Engine woes not halting Dixon
Dixon’s 2025 has been riddled by engine issues so far - including a motor expiring in a pre-season test. The Honda cars all have planned engine changes ahead of Fast Friday, with Dixon already on his fifth engine and early-season penalties looming.
“I don’t know if it’s for me to tell [what happened],” he said. “We’ll do another [change] tonight as well. It’s pretty good going… five races, five engines.”
It was raised that Dixon could have skipped Thursday’s session to save an engine. But the big picture often goes out of the window at Indy given the magnitude of the race.
“This is the biggest race of the year,” Dixon said. “Long story short, we wanted to make sure that we could bank some laps. I’m glad we did. We learned some pretty good things today. That was good. We didn’t want it to bite us later with not getting out there.”
Engine woes aside, Dixon is feeling in strong stead after the early on-track running.
“We did one long run at the end with a pretty big change that I’ve never done here,” said the six time IndyCar champion and 2008 Indy 500 winner. “That wasn’t great but it was good to learn from it.
“The long run that we had done earlier in the day, I was really happy with the car. The car was solid, pulled up really well. We could sit really close. We could make passes. That was definitely the best I’ve felt for a while actually so that was good.”
Most recently on pole in 2022 for the Indy 500, Dixon has another opportunity to tie Rick Mears’ pole record of six at the Speedway this weekend.
“It would be better to tie him with four wins,” Dixon said. “[Equally the pole record] would mean a lot. It would be huge if we could.
“Obviously that’s the name of the game for this week. Conditions are going to be pretty interesting. With the hybrid, there’s probably more chance of making bad mistakes. We could see some pretty great runs and some pretty bad runs.”
Drivers predict the pecking order
At this stage, the speed charts are difficult to dissect. There are many caveats relating to run plans or, especially in the case of one-off entrants with only a single engine, engine modes.
“[Andretti] look confident for sure,” O’Ward observes. “They look very strong both speed-wise and traffic running. At least two in their camp are super strong - Kirkwood, Herta.
“Don’t count the Penskes. They’re going to have rockets just like they did last year. I don’t want to assume before we really see what to expect but Ganassi seems to have taken a step forward as well just from playing around with them in traffic.
“The speed feels a little bit like ‘22, us against Ganassi. It’s hard to say right now. You don’t know who is hiding what or are both manufacturers showing everything.”
The common consensus is that Penske’s prominence has not diminished. But Andretti have caught the eye too.
“They’ve obviously won two in a row for a reason,” Daly said. “And they got all the special information from Michael Cannon too so then they got a little bit quicker. I was predicting a Penske front row lockout again.
“Kirkwood looks fast - I think Kirkwood might fight [Newgarden] a little bit. Maybe I would like to as well. Josef is so good here. He knows exactly what he wants. He’s a great champion and he’s very smart. Can’t fault him for being confident.”
Dixon was a little more reserved but shared the views on Penske.
“Our car has been pretty good in race running,” he said. “A lot of things changed so I don’t know. I will say that definitely the Penske cars look strong. I don’t know… there can always be a weird twist that comes so I would hope that that’s true.”
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