Monday’s Indianapolis 500 practice session was the busiest of the month so far. While the overall laps turned weren’t as high as a few of the other days last week, the session on Monday was shorter than those in length, which meant that the 2,526 laps turned in just over three hours goes to show you just how busy it really was.
In that practice, Sage Karam topped the speed charts flying around the famed 2.5-mile track with a speed of 226.461 mph in his No. 24 Chevrolet. Karam, has had great pace in each of the four practice sessions where drivers were circling the track on race setups, as he’s been in the top 10 in each. Fan favorite Tony Kanaan was second quick in his No. 14 Chevrolet with a speed of 225.123 mph. Like Karam, Kanaan has been extremely quick in each of the race practice sessions too. Ryan Hunter-Reay (224.820 mph), Charlie Kimball (224.582 mph) and Alexander Rossi (224.507 mph) rounded out the top five.
In qualifying, it appeared that Chevrolet would be the ones to beat for the race, but Honda’s have proven to have equal race pace with the bowties. There were five Chevy drivers and five Honda drivers in the top 10 of the final speed charts on Monday.
Speaking of Honda, one of their teams saw their struggling month continue when Schmidt Peterson Motorsports rookie Robert Wickens crashed hard on the backstretch. Wickens, scrapped the SAFER barrier at the exit of Turn 2 which the contact appeared to cut down his right rear tire. The damage sent his car breaking to the right towards the middle of the 5/8-mile backstretch and hard into the outside wall.
Two days ago, Wickens’ teammate James Hinchcliffe failed to make the field for the May 27 race.
Monday’s Practice Results
- 24 Karam 226.461
- 14 Kanaan 225.123
- 28 Hunter-Reay 224.820
- 23 Kimball 224.582
- 27 Rossi 224.507
- 12 Power 224.445
- 3 Castroneves 224.368
- 98 Andretti 224.148
- 19 Claman DeMelo R 224.091
- 9 Dixon 223.966
- 18 Bourdais 223.750
- 25 Wilson 223.714
- 32 Kaiser R 223.667
- 20 Carpenter 223.573
- 66 Hildebrand 223.244
- 29 Munoz 223.218
- 15 Rahal 223.119
- 4 Leist R 222.964
- 13 Patrick 222.926
- 88 Chaves 222.884
- 60 Harvey 222.861
- 7 Howard 222.795
- 30 Sato 222.577
- 26 Veach 222.400
- 6 Wickens R 222.325
- 10 Jones 222.268
- 21 Pigot 222.076
- 1 Newgarden 221.982
- 59 Chilton 221.904
- 33 Davison 221.603
- 64 Servia 221.580
- 17 Daly 221.226