Chaves leads Honda quartet at the conclusion of Thursday practice
After ending Wednesday second on the speed charts, Chaves backed up the surprise speed from the Dale Coyne Racing Hondas by going P1 today.
Photo by: IndyCar Series
Chaves' fast lap (227.961mph) was slower than what he was able to achieve yesterday, but good enough to best the other 32 competitors today. His teammate Conor Daly wasn't too far behind in fourth.
"It's only practice, but it feels pretty good. It's my first time atop the charts in an Indy Car at IMS," said the Colombian.
Between them were the Andretti Autosport machines of Townsend Bell and Carlos Munoz.
"Worked a lot on race setup all day. Really thankful to be part of a five-car program where there is so much info ... That's huge to have that amount of information. And the chance to run with them in traffic repeatedly is helpful," said Bell, who is running a one-off entry for Andretti.
Charlie Kimball led the way for Chevrolet in fifth (227.477mph), piloting the No. 42 for Chip Ganassi Racing.
"The No. 42 has been decent in traffic," said Kimball. "I think at the moment, it's pretty tough. We're fighting from a little bit of a hole here. But at the moment, we're focused to see what we get when the boost level changes because it is a whole different package."
As for the no-tow speed charts, Team Penske's Will Power topped the charts at 225.381mph. He was trailed by Graham Rahal, Scott Dixon, Juan Pablo Montoya, and Alexander Rossi. Chaves was 16th in no-tow speeds.
At the very end of practice, Spencer Pigot (who crashed on Wednesday) made his way to the pit lane, but did not run any laps. Oriol Servia ran the most at 127, while Tony Kanaan ran the least at 37.
During Happy Hour, as expected, a train of cars drafted together. The pack got as large as 19 cars before slowly diminishing towards the end of the hour. The three A.J. Foyt cars of Alex Tagliani, Takuma Sato and Jack Hawksworth were the last drivers on track when the checkered flag flew.
Marco Andretti ran three laps in Alexander Rossi's car, a teammate through the recently established relationship between Andretti and Bryan Herta.
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments