Indy 500: Karam leads extensive race-trim practice
Sage Karam put Dreyer & Reinbold Racing-Chevrolet at the top of the speed charts, as drivers focused on getting their cars fettled in race trim and went back to raceday turbo boost.
Sage Karam, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Chevrolet
Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images
The hot and humid three-hour, session, which was briefly interrupted by sprinkles of rain and a shunt for Robert Wickens, was the last chance – other than a 1-hour session on Carb Day (Friday) – for the drivers to practice ahead of the race. They now head off on promotional tours around the country.
Back to the “regular” superspeedway 1.3-bar boost, Karam was the only driver to lap under 40sec, setting an average of 226.461mph, 1.3mph faster than second fastest Tony Kanaan in the AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy. However, the Pennsylvanian admitted that he just happened to catch a great draft and that “anyone in the same position could have set the same lap time.”
A trio of Americans filled the next three places, the Andretti Autosport Hondas of Ryan Hunter-Reay and Alexander Rossi sandwiching Charlie Kimball’s Carlin-Chevy.
The Penske-Chevrolets of Will Power were sixth and seventh quickest and also turned the most laps of the day, 120 and 118 laps respectively. Power and another teammate, Josef Newgarden in particular were working hard practicing passing, and the timing of those passes.
Marco Andretti was eighth for Andretti Autosport, ahead of Dale Coyne Racing’s increasingly impressive rookie Zachary Claman De Melo and the Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda of Scott Dixon.
Indy 500, Day 7 practice
Cla | # | Driver | Laps | Time | Gap | Interval | Mph |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 24 | Sage Karam | 71 | 39.7419 | 226.461 | ||
2 | 14 | Tony Kanaan | 66 | 39.9781 | 0.2362 | 0.2362 | 225.123 |
3 | 28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 68 | 40.0320 | 0.2901 | 0.0539 | 224.820 |
4 | 23 | Charlie Kimball | 79 | 40.0745 | 0.3326 | 0.0425 | 224.582 |
5 | 27 | Alexander Rossi | 70 | 40.0878 | 0.3459 | 0.0133 | 224.507 |
6 | 12 | Will Power | 120 | 40.0989 | 0.3570 | 0.0111 | 224.445 |
7 | 3 | Helio Castroneves | 118 | 40.1126 | 0.3707 | 0.0137 | 224.368 |
8 | 98 | Marco Andretti | 56 | 40.1520 | 0.4101 | 0.0394 | 224.148 |
9 | 19 | Zachary Claman De Melo | 79 | 40.1623 | 0.4204 | 0.0103 | 224.091 |
10 | 9 | Scott Dixon | 101 | 40.1847 | 0.4428 | 0.0224 | 223.966 |
11 | 18 | Sébastien Bourdais | 92 | 40.2235 | 0.4816 | 0.0388 | 223.750 |
12 | 25 | Stefan Wilson | 115 | 40.2299 | 0.4880 | 0.0064 | 223.714 |
13 | 32 | Kyle Kaiser | 72 | 40.2384 | 0.4965 | 0.0085 | 223.667 |
14 | 20 | Ed Carpenter | 100 | 40.2553 | 0.5134 | 0.0169 | 223.573 |
15 | 66 | J.R. Hildebrand | 93 | 40.3147 | 0.5728 | 0.0594 | 223.244 |
16 | 29 | Carlos Munoz | 109 | 40.3194 | 0.5775 | 0.0047 | 223.218 |
17 | 15 | Graham Rahal | 115 | 40.3372 | 0.5953 | 0.0178 | 223.119 |
18 | 4 | Matheus Leist | 19 | 40.3652 | 0.6233 | 0.0280 | 222.964 |
19 | 13 | Danica Patrick | 69 | 40.3721 | 0.6302 | 0.0069 | 222.926 |
20 | 88 | Gabby Chaves | 51 | 40.3798 | 0.6379 | 0.0077 | 222.884 |
21 | 60 | Jack Harvey | 93 | 40.3840 | 0.6421 | 0.0042 | 222.861 |
22 | 7 | Jay Howard | 100 | 40.3959 | 0.6540 | 0.0119 | 222.795 |
23 | 30 | Takuma Sato | 74 | 40.4354 | 0.6935 | 0.0395 | 222.577 |
24 | 26 | Zach Veach | 54 | 40.4676 | 0.7257 | 0.0322 | 222.400 |
25 | 6 | Robert Wickens | 3 | 40.4812 | 0.7393 | 0.0136 | 222.325 |
26 | 10 | Ed Jones | 98 | 40.4916 | 0.7497 | 0.0104 | 222.268 |
27 | 21 | Spencer Pigot | 81 | 40.5267 | 0.7848 | 0.0351 | 222.076 |
28 | 1 | Josef Newgarden | 87 | 40.5438 | 0.8019 | 0.0171 | 221.982 |
29 | 59 | Max Chilton | 45 | 40.5580 | 0.8161 | 0.0142 | 221.904 |
30 | 33 | James Davison | 45 | 40.6131 | 0.8712 | 0.0551 | 221.603 |
31 | 64 | Oriol Servia | 65 | 40.6174 | 0.8755 | 0.0043 | 221.580 |
32 | 17 | Conor Daly | 60 | 40.6824 | 0.9405 | 0.0650 | 221.226 |
33 | 22 | Simon Pagenaud | 58 | 40.7421 | 1.0002 | 0.0597 | 220.902 |
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