– The first of two planned days at the official pre-test for this year’s edition of the Indianapolis 500, the highlight of the IndyCar season, has concluded. After the focus on Tuesday until 2:00 PM local time (8:00 PM CEST) was on the Rookie Program, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was open to all registered drivers in the late afternoon.
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For Mick Schumacher (Rahal-Honda), who, like Caio Collet (Foyt-Chevrolet), successfully completed the mandatory Rookie Program (ROP) shortly before 2:00 PM local time, the late afternoon marked his first Indianapolis laps in a pack.
Dennis Hauger also completes Rookie Program
In the nearly four-hour session, Schumacher completed 30 laps, with his personal fastest recorded at an average of 220.781 miles per hour (355.236 km/h). This placed him P24 in the session results.
After Mick Schumacher and Caio Collet had already completed the three-stage Rookie Program before the last session of the day, Dennis Hauger (Coyne-Honda) caught up on his last missing laps for Phase 3 of the ROP in the late afternoon.
Thus, all rookies in this year’s Indy 500 field have obtained official approval for free practice and qualifying. The first practice day is Tuesday, May 12.
Conor Daly sets the day’s best time
Conor Daly (Dreyer/Reinbold-Chevrolet) topped the time sheets late Tuesday afternoon with a lap driven in a pack at 225.394 miles per hour (362.658 km/h), which was clearly the best time of the day. Helio Castroneves (Shank-Honda) and Takuma Sato (Rahal-Honda) took P2 and P3 respectively.
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Sato is once again entered in Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL)’s fourth car this year solely for the Indy 500. The two-time Indy 500 winner from Japan is thus an additional teammate for Mick Schumacher at the season highlight, as has been known for weeks.
In the standings for laps driven solo, i.e., without the aid of a slipstream, Jack Harvey (Dreyer/Reinbold-Chevrolet) was the fastest in the late afternoon, at 220.318 miles per hour (354.491 km/h). There were no incidents in the form of accidents on the first test day.
Katherine Legge without laps on the first test day
However, not all 33 registered drivers were on track, but only 32. Katherine Legge’s (HMD/Foyt-Chevrolet) car had technical problems early in the afternoon, which meant the Briton did not drive in the late afternoon either. She was unable to complete a single lap on Tuesday.
The second day (Wednesday) of the official Indy 500 pre-test provides for a total of six hours of driving for all drivers. However, the weather forecast, especially for the morning and forenoon hours, is not good. Rain is expected. In the rain, there is generally no IndyCar driving on ovals. How much track time there will actually be on the second test day remains to be seen.
