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Ovde ce biti strim za "Brzi petak":

 

 

http://racecontrol.indycar.com/

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Najbrzi danas bez pomoci zavetrine, i najozbiljniji kandidati sutra za kvalifikacije u "brzih 9". Pada u oci dominacija Sevroleta za razliku od predhodnih par sezona kada je Honda imala prednost.

Inace ukupno najbrze vreme imao je Andreti ispred Vikensa (oba Honde) i Karpentera (Sevi).

Danasnji dan je zavrsen ranije zbog kise, koja preti da poremeti i program kvalifikacija za vikend. Ako se to dogodi, sve se pomera za prvi slobodan dan od nedelje.

 

Uskoro detaljnije.

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Andretti, Wickens, Carpenter lead Fast Friday practice



By: Robin Miller | 3 hours ago


Marco Andretti, Robert Wickens and Ed Carpenter topped 231mph during Fast Friday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway — but all eyes were on Team Penske heading into qualifying.

While the top trio all posted their speeds in traffic, Will Power, Josef Newgarden and Simon Pagenaud threw down the fastest laps with no tow.

Power, in the Verizon Chevrolet, posted a lap of 229.780mph with no help and it was the fifth-fastest time of the day.

“I think the No. 12 Verizon Chevy is definitely in a good window,” said Power. “I think, obviously, we’re fast. I know there are lot of guys up there. I think it’s going to be very tight tomorrow, so we’ll know more when everyone goes. It’s always that you can feel fast on Friday, and suddenly go out, no traffic, or wind changes or anything, and the car’s not as good.

“But I felt I’ve been good all month, so we’ll see tomorrow.”

Point leader Newgarden traveled 228.993mph with no tow in the other Verizon Chevy and Pagenaud found 228.857mph in the Menard’s Chevy on an overcast, cool day that saw the first serious accident of the month.

James Davison lost control negotiating Turn 2 and slammed his Byrd/502 East Chevy into the outside wall. David Byrd, along with partners Brian Belardi and Brad Hollinger, put the deal together to lease an A.J. Foyt car for Davison, who escaped injury. The car was damaged but expected to be ready for Saturday’s opening round of time trials.

Andretti, who held the top speed of the month at 227.053mph going into Friday, topped that with a lap of 231.802mph in the US Concrete Honda.

“We’ve been feeling good in traffic, which obviously the tow time shows that, and the car is close in race trim,” said Andretti, who was 12th on the no-tow list. “I’m not pleased with the car speed right now and I think we’re on the bubble of the top nine, to be honest.

“I think it’s going to be all about the third and fourth lap and we’re just going to have to nail it.”

Wickens found 231.732mph in the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Lucas Oil Honda.

“I don’t feel like I fully deserve to be here. My first lap of the day two people came out in front of me and I just got this insane tow,” said Wickens, who has been nothing but impressive in his rookie year with SPM.

“Honestly, we have a lot of work to do. I think we’re okay by ourselves here on Fast Friday but we’re on the outskirts of the Fast 9, which is my goal for tomorrow.”

Carpenter was timed at 231.066mph in the Fuzzy’s Chevy. But Carpenter also was fourth best among all the no-towers at 228.740mph.

With IndyCar upping the engine boost for this weekend’s qualifying, drivers were dealing with 40-50 more horsepower and all 35 entries practiced. Two will be sent home after Saturday.

 

Byrd/Belardi/Hollinger group scrambles to rebuild Davison's car

 
By: Robin Miller | 4 hours ago


James Davison was minding his own business Friday afternoon, tooling through Turn 2 in the middle of the groove when everything went sideways, so to speak.

In the first serious shunt of the month, Davison spun into the wall and put a pretty good hurt on his 502 East Chevy.

“I had zero warning,” said Davison, who walked away uninjured from the crash. “I didn’t turn in too early, I didn’t pinch it and I didn’t have any big moments in Turn 1 or anything.

“We were 32nd on the no-tow list so we had to go out and trim it a little and do a qualifying sim.”

David Byrd, along with partners Brian Belardi and Brad Hollinger, put the deal together to lease an A.J. Foyt car for Davison, and his team was scrambling to put the damaged Dallara back together on Friday evening.

“It got the left side suspension, sidepod, uprights and undergrad,” said Byrd, whose father sponsored cars at Indianapolis all through the ’80s and ’90s. “It looks like it also got the gearbox so we’re scrambling a little bit.

“But it’s a good group of mechanics and we’ll get everything back together.”

Just then Bob Lazier poked his head in the garage. “Bob offered to give us whatever we needed; he said he’s got a car three blocks away,” said Byrd.

IndyCar rules say that Davison needs to present his car for qualifying on Saturday and go out in the position he drew Friday evening.

“I think we’ll be out by tomorrow morning,” said Davison. “We’ve just got to get in a little practice.”

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Indy aero balance proving a moving target



By: Marshall Pruett | 5 hours ago


The 2018 Indianapolis 500 might go down as one of the most frustrating events in recent history for a large portion of the grid.

Drivers and engineers alike have been burning countless hours while searching for the optimal mechanical setup, and outside of suspension settings, the hunt for a happy aerodynamic balance has been a fruitless fishing expedition for far too many. Faces, painted with questions or confusion, have become the norm as attempts to master the Universal Aero Kit 18 has not gone according to plan.

Teams are just starting to wraps their heads around the car in qualifying trim, but for the all-important 500-mile race, discussions of ill-handling Dallara DW12s have been prevalent on pit lane.

“In order to make the car work in traffic, you still a lot of times have to run it right on the edge of being uncomfortable,” said Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden. “That’s just sometimes what you have to do to make it fast, make it work. Really everyone in the field, they’re working a lot harder than you realize sometimes. It is on a knife edge every now and then, but you just try to make that edge a little bit duller so it doesn’t cut you as deep.”

Newgarden’s Chevy-powered teammate Simon Pagenaud described a more frightening phenomenon when following a pack of cars.

“The aero wash – you’re losing a lot of load on the front when you’re behind someone,” he said of the turbulence affecting front grip. “It’s so unexpected. It’s so drastic. All of a sudden, it’s like the front wing broke. It’s kind of scary at 240mph.

“The draft is amazing. You do have a chance to pass with the draft, but it’s very difficult to keep the front tires working. You slide so much that you end up burning [up] the front tires, so you make adjustments, and then you burn the rear tires, and then everything’s burned. Back in the pack is very difficult.”

Following JR Hildebrand’s slide into the wall that damaged the left side of his Dreyer & Reinbold Chevy, Graham Rahal confessed he came close to a similar outcome with his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda.


Graham Rahal and teammates Takuma Sato and Oriol Servia ponder their setups. (Image by LAT Images)

“I can’t tell you how many times I thought I was going to be in that scenario today where the right-front tire is so overworked, you have so much slip angle in it, it just gives up,” he said. “It’s like ice and then, bang, you hit a curb. You turn [in], it doesn’t turn. We’ve all done it. That’s exactly what it feels like.

“It’s difficult because you don’t know what a fine line is. Sometimes it’s slide, slide, slide, then OK. Other times it never comes back. I just think the further back you are, you have to hang on. These cars, you got to drive the you-know-what out of them. The rear is sliding around, the front is pushing. It’s not pretty, that’s for sure.”

The RLLR driver described the process he and many others have been working through in traffic during practice.

“A lot of it is trying to understand the way that it wiggles,” he continued. “It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. We’re used to the old car. You know what it’s going to do. You know what to expect. This car is a different animal.

“Fortunately with this car – knock on wood, I don’t want to jinx myself – when it does tend to go, the front is what gives up. That’s a much better feeling than the rear. In the old car, the rear would tend to go. This is definitely better off. But for sure, understanding the front wing, what angle does it work at, what angle does it stall at, the end fences, all of this stuff is so new, just to try to make it work is a bit of a chore.”

Team owner Dale Coyne, who has four Honda-powered cars entered for the race, has heard a similar tune being sung by the likes of Sebastien Bourdais, Conor Daly, Pippa Mann, and Zachary Claman De Melo.

“The traffic issue has surprised us.There’s no fixing it,” he said. “You’re not stuck anymore; there’s no feel to the car. It’s still creates the vacuum, but it gets more intense and you lose all the feel with the car if you can’t get out of it. You’re afraid to pull out, afraid to do anything. Can’t get closer.”

As three-time Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti told RACER on Thursday, being the first or second car in a tow isn’t bad; pulling out to pass the leader should be easier than ever, but for those who don’t have the speed to run towards the front, or get stuck farther back due to misfortune or a bad pit stop, listen in for some heated radio transmissions.

In a scenario where 30 of the 33 drivers might be experiencing a feeling of driving on ice, as Rahal explained, we could be in store for a wild 102nd Indy 500.

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INSIGHT: 2018's Indy 500 tuning options



By: Marshall Pruett | 5 hours ago


Transforming IndyCar’s beast into a beauty has come at a price. That price is evidenced by the lack of stunning speed produced so far during practice for the Indianapolis 500, but the sacrifice was necessary to remodel Dallara’s DW12 chassis.

The one key change from last year’s manufacturer aero kits produced by Chevy and Honda to IndyCar’s new Universal Aero Kit has been the removal of the unsightly rear wheel guards. With their deletion, the DW12’s looks have vastly improved, and in the opposite direction, average lap speeds have decreased by a few miles per hour. It’s simply a byproduct of losing the rear wheel guards.

Thanks to the tapered guards behind the rear tires, aerodynamic drag was reduced as air flowed over and behind each car. In their absence, drivers are no longer expecting to see the 232mph lap speeds generated in qualifying around the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway from 2017. It’s a guessing game until qualifying gets under way, but cracking the 230mph mark, according to some of the fastest in the field, could be an unreasonable expectation.



Looking inside the numerical differences for downforce, drag, and the aero tuning options available to teams, provides deeper answers on why speeds are slightly down and the cars are harder to drive.

Last year, and without naming the aero kit manufacturer, drivers went into qualifying with approximately 2080 pounds of downforce applied. And with that downforce, roughly 645 pounds of drag was pulled through the air.

Those figures were achieved through careful manipulation of dozens of bodywork configurations created by the manufacturers. Drivers, free to refine the intersection of speed and handling to their liking, rarely complained about an inability to tailor cars to suit their needs. At Indianapolis with the UAK18, drivers have not been as fortunate.



In an effort to reduce costs and complexity, the pretty new bodywork is surprisingly short on aero tuning pieces, and as a result, dialing downforce numbers down to last year’s qualifying figures will be tough without embracing insanity. Drag figures, in light of the rear wheel guard removal, have also gone up.

Qualifying downforce should be up in the 2160-pound range with 680 pounds of drag, and on the surface, the 80-pound hike in downforce might appear to be the big issue, but it’s actually the 35 extra pounds of drag that is responsible for the lowered speeds. On average, for every 10-11 pounds of drag added to a car, one mile per hour is lost. Using Scott Dixon’s 2017 pole of 232mph as a guide, 2018’s pole could be 228-229mph or so.

And even with the added turbo boost for Fast Friday and both days of qualifying, the 40-50hp jump in power will not be enough to overcome the new aerodynamic limitations. The best no-tow in cool, Happy Hour-like conditions laps today have been in the same 228-229mph range most engineers predicted would be seen.

Where the manufacturer aero kits once gave great freedom for teams to play with a variety of front wing Gurney flaps, multiple sidepod and rear wheel ramp configurations, rear wheel pod wing and Gurney packages, and the option to remove one or both diffuser sidewalls to shed downforce and drag, the rules governing the UAK18 at Indy paints race engineers into a very narrow tuning window.



The new, swept front wing is constructed as a one-piece unit, which means adding or removing wing angle affects the left and right side equally. Teams are limited to four Gurney flap options to choose from for the front wing, and nothing more. The spec front wing endplates can be adjusted – and it’s a lengthy process – to keep them relatively level to the ground after an angle change is made to the wing, but that would only be done during practice.



Unlike the rear wing, IndyCar has not mandated a fixed range of front wing angles, so engineers can crank in as much as they want to combat understeer, or wind some out to reduce oversteer. Although front wings angles are open, there’s a practical limit to what’s useful.

Wing angle and four Gurneys; that’s all teams and drivers have to work with up front to find or maintain aero balance. From their comments across three days of practice, the tuning variables are too few to achieve true happiness.



At the back of the UAK18, a new, Honda-like rear wing is wider than the 2017 version and comes as a one-piece unit. IndyCar has given teams a tuning range of two degrees positive (meaning the leading edge of the wing is tilted downward) to nine degrees negative (where the leading edge of the wing is tilted upward). Gurneys aren’t allowed on the rear wing, or atop the diffuser, or anywhere else other than the outer edge of the front wings.

In qualifying trim, engineers have reported an expectation to play within the 0 to -4 range; going lower than -4 is a possibility, but the loss of efficiency is rather drastic. Another consideration to keep in mind is when teams start to tilt the rear wing back to remove downforce, the decrease isn’t provided solely by the lower wing angle.



By tilting the wing back and exposing more of the wing’s underside to the oncoming air, that underside air is pushed down as it leaves the wing. That fast, downward air stream then intersects with the air leaving the car’s diffuser and, critically, creates some separation with the underbody air from the diffuser which also reduces downforce.

The UAK18’s underbody and diffuser package has also undergone some changes that are central to tuning and safety. A new shape at the front and sides of the sidepods are visible, as is the hole in the floor used to cut downforce on the speedways.

A significant advancement by IndyCar’s technical department has removed the unloved dome skid that was required in recent years to be used directly beneath the car. The dome skid served its purpose when a driver was caught in a spin; while sideways, the rounded skid helped produce downforce as air went under the car from the side and gave the driver greater control, but teams were also forced to raise the car’s ride height which affected performance and handling.



The new solution has been to remove the dome skid and install elongated ‘bumps’ (pictured above) on the outer edges of the underwing. Those rounded add-on oval safety pieces act in the same manner by creating downforce while sideways but, thankfully, teams do not need to raise the ride height.

Another notable trait that’s new to the UAK in Speedway configuration is the sensitivity to hot track temperatures. With the underwing responsible for a much greater portion of downforce production at Indy, hot days and a hot track means thinner air is working beneath the cars. Just as that thinner air makes less downforce when running below the front and rear wings, a much bigger loss is experienced below the car’s biggest wing – the one out of sight that sits inches above the circuit.

If it’s hot in qualifying or the race, teams will need to pile on more topside downforce because they do not have the ability to make more downforce with the underwing. There are no provisions for doing so in the rules, and as we’ve already covered, the rules do not give much leeway to use the topside wings to glue the cars to the ground.



The last area of tuning for engineers is found with the diffuser, and frankly, the options there aren’t worth exploring. Through 2017, teams were allowed to remove one or both sidewalls, which came with a heavy downforce cut and a minimal drag reduction. Most drivers could get comfortable running with only one sidewall in place, and only the brave – and crazy – tried lapping with both sidewalls taken off the diffuser.

For 2018, IndyCar has given teams three sidewall choices: the standard sidewalls can be used (the longer sidewalls from 2017 have been banned), a highly trimmed sidewall version can be installed, but those are close to having no sidewalls, and teams can remove both sidewalls. The option to remove a single sidewall has also been banned which, in all reality, means most teams will likely stick with keeping both standard sidewalls attached in qualifying.

Only the desperate would take the second or third options.



A few Gurney options, some wing angle, and a lot of talent will be required to extract speed in qualifying. Knowing how few aero options teams have at their disposal, mechanical setups will be more important than ever.

Some might get most of the pieces in order but, as a whole, solving the UAK18 puzzle just might be impossible at Indy this year.

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MILLER: Danica deserves her place in IndyCar history

 

By: Robin Miller | 8 hours ago


When Danica Patrick drafted past Dan Wheldon and into the lead of the 2005 Indianapolis 500 with 10 laps remaining, the noise was deafening: 250,000 people stood and roared as this ballsy 100-pound pixie had the boys on the ropes.

It didn’t matter that Wheldon re-took the lead with seven laps left and Patrick ended up finishing fourth, because her life would never be the same. She had become a household name in the matter of five minutes. Newspapers, magazines, sports talk shows and late night hosts trumpeted her success, and for the first time in two decades, an IndyCar driver was back on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Danica became a one-word celebrity overnight, and open-wheel racing suddenly had a pulse again in the United States.

Little girls and women with absolutely no interest in auto racing began paying attention. And plenty of men sang Patrick’s praises as they were buying her T-shirt. The attention and press was overwhelming, not so much to Danica, but to some of her competitors and people in the IndyCar paddock. They originally loved the fact she’d put IndyCar back on the map, but that enthusiasm quickly turned into jealousy on several fronts.

For the next couple years she was the focus whenever IndyCar came to town, and the underlying grumble was that she hadn’t done anything to deserve that kind of coverage and until she won a race it was all hype.

Then when she won in Japan in 2008, the critics all said, big deal, it was a fuel mileage victory and, besides, Roger Penske ordered Helio Castroneves to slow down so she could win. (Honestly, I heard that 100 times).

When she headed for NASCAR in 2012, IndyCar didn’t try to stop her ,and the general feeling seemed to be good riddance instead of good luck. There didn’t seem to be any middle ground – people either adored her or loathed her, and she was more polarizing than popular by the time she left. Of course, the main complaint was that she got way too much publicity and didn’t deserve half of it. She was just a pretty face, but not a race driver. She was hyped to the heavens, and not hell on wheels. Her entire resume was a few laps at Indy, and she only got up there because of strategy.


Fans, 2011 Indy 500. Image by LAT

First of all, it wasn’t her fault that sportswriters and TV folks clamored for interviews. Or ran her photo. Or acted like she was all IndyCar had to offer. Did she take advantage of her status? Damn right she did, and whether it was national TV commercials or print ads, it was indirectly drawing attention to IndyCar it would have never received.  I was in a restaurant one night in Kansas City and heard a few guys discussing their weekend plans. They were NASCAR fans, but they reckoned they ought to go check out that “little sweetheart on the GoDaddy commercials”.

I always found it funny that even some of the people in my business barred their fangs at the mere mention of her name. The “Queen of Hype”, they called her. Other than leading a few laps at Indy, what has she ever done?

And that brings us to today’s sermon. I don’t care if you adore her, think she’s bitchy, got mad when she didn’t sign an autograph or became an IndyCar fan because she was nice to your kid in the garage area. But don’t tell me she wasn’t a racer.

Sarah Fisher is the first female that drove an IndyCar who wasn’t afraid to mix it up with the boys, and her short-track mentality served her well. But Danica was the first female IndyCar driver that acted like a guy. She had a little chip on her shoulder, and didn’t take s$#@ from anyone. Those years in England when she was a teenager racing Formula Fords without mom or dad around gave her an edge that she never lost.  So when somebody says she never did anything besides her five minutes of fame at Indy, I know either they don’t like her or don’t know what they’re talking about. Or both. Her drive in 2005 at IMS isn’t even in her Top 10.


Patrick vs Kanaan, Homestead, 2010. Image by Webb/LAT

So humor me and follow along:

• In 2010, she and Tony Kanaan waged one of the fiercest, wheel-to-wheel duels I’ve ever seen at Homestead in the closing 10 laps. She ran second, T.K. was third.
• In 2007 at Texas, the scariest/hairest place IndyCars have run on since Langhorne, she traded the lead with Sam Hornish, Ryan Briscoe and T.K. before finishing third.
• In 2007, she finished second at Watkins Glen and drew praise from Paul Tracy (“that’s a badass race track and she was impressive,” he said later.)
• In 2009, she started 10^th and finished third at Indy behind Helio and Wheldon, but ahead of Scott Dixon, Will Power and Dario.
• In 2010, again at Texas, she chased Briscoe to the checkered flag and took second place.
• She ran fourth, fourth and fifth at Milwaukee, which has always been known as a driver’s track.
• In 2009, she went from 22^nd to fourth at Long Beach after The Split had been mended.
• In 2008, she finished third at Chicago and Kansas.
• In 2007, she made a couple of late passes to take third at Nashville.
• At Motegi, she became the only female to ever win an IndyCar race.

Her average finish at Indianapolis is 8.7, but she’s scored a third, fourth, sixth and a pair of eighths in her seven starts. She finished fifth in the 2009 point standings, and was only out of the Top 10 once in seven years.

I’m not saying she’s a first-ballot hall of famer or should be mentioned alongside the likes of Castroneves, Dixon, Franchitti, Kanaan or Power, but she sure as hell proved she belonged in an IndyCar. She’s also going to be in the history books forever because she earned it. And, yeah, yeah, I know, she’s received way too much publicity this month for somebody who turned their back on IndyCar. Really? She did what lots of guys have done, she chased the money (and she caught it).

It is too bad she didn’t stay in IndyCar from the standpoint of being competitive, because her NASCAR career was a bust (like many open-wheeler drivers before her) but she did make the right choice to retire at where it all began.

I’ve got no idea how she’ll do in the race, but it doesn’t matter. Danica and Indy will always belong in the same sentence.

 

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No change to downforce for Indy 500 raceday, confirms IndyCar



By: David Malsher, US Editor
11 hours ago


Despite some drivers expressing worries over the difficulty of passing with the 2018 aerokit in superspeedway trim, Jay Frye, IndyCar’s president of competition, has confirmed the governing body won’t be adding ‘last-minute’ downforce for the race.

Several drivers have been pointing out that while the front two in a convoy of cars can pass, further down the line it gets increasingly difficult to pull off a maneuver around the car in front. The 2018 spec Dallara aerokit has less downforce than the manufacturer aerokits but more drag. Team owner Dale Coyne described the aero effect to Motorsport.com as being “more intense, but narrower, so you tow up real fast – faster than with the last car – but when you move out to pass, you just don’t pull past at a great rate. The passes you have seen are coming at the end of the straights, where you come up the inside and just steal the line of the guy on the outside.”

However, Frye confirmed to Motorsport.com that IndyCar would not be making any last-minute adjustments to downforce levels in race trim.

“No, absolutely not,” he said. “We ran a lot of laps before we got here this week, and we were encouraged with where we’re at. We’re hearing lots of different things from lots of different drivers and actually we’re encouraged by that too, because the range of opinions is all spread out. It’s a little different for everybody.

“Remember, last year we had frozen the aero regulations, so the teams were dealing with the exact same car they’d run the year before. Now it’s different, we’ve tested here with this car, there were no complaints but now it’s game time and the wick gets turned up.

“We monitor every practice, every day, get around and talk to everyone we can and there’s not a consensus about what’s happening. We’ve talked to some people who say they couldn’t be happier with the cars and others who are struggling a bit and that’s racing… That’s why we do what we do.

“We’ve had Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday – 28 hours of practice – and there are teams still trying to find their sweet spots. But overall we’re pleased with how the car’s been functioning, the speeds are in the range we thought they would be right out of the box, and this is only Year 1. There’s a lot of a potential.

“So we’ve seen this new car practicing and racing on street courses, road courses, and short ovals. This was the other big box to check coming here and we’re happy with it. Nothing we’ve seen from this car has surprised us in any way.”

Frye was also satisfied that the car had reacted well in James Davison’s shunt this afternoon.

“We’ve had the car crash here, Takuma [Sato] had an incident at Texas Motor Speedway and then James Hinchcliffe crashed at Phoenix last fall,” he said, “but I think this is the first one that involved the car going backward at high speed, and the rear flaps [to prevent take-off] worked well, all systems worked as they should.”

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Zvanicni strim danasnjeg treninga i kvalifikacija. Iskljucice se u neko doba dana kada prenos krene na TV. Do tada cu iskopati i taj strim:

 

[Rad-oh-yeah?]

Davison back on track, but off the pace

 

By: Marshall Pruett | 28 minutes ago


A.J. Foyt Racing driver James Davison returned to the track this morning in his repaired No. 33 Byrd/Hollinger/Belardi Chevy entry after crashing hard on Friday.

The Australian completed 14 laps during a rain-delayed practice session and reported no problems with the car, which was positive. The lingering negative, however, was the lack of outright speed ahead of qualifying which starts later this morning. With the slowest individual lap speed among the 35 cars entered for the 33-car race, Davison was hoping the rebuilt No. 33 would go faster, but as he found in the abbreviated session, making the field is more of a question mark than a certainty.

“It felt back to normal, but the speed’s not there, so that’s concerning to us,” he said after posting a best no-tow lap of 224.732mph. “We’ve really got to try and find a mile and hour to find some safety. All we can do it the best with what we have and maximize that. We have to get some speed in it. Can we get a full mile and hour? We’re unsure about that right now.”

[Rad-oh-yeah?]

Raspored za kvalifikacije:

 

https://digbza2f4g9q...er-Saturday.pdf

[Rad-oh-yeah?]

Veliko iznenadjenje danas, jedan od favorita Dzejms Hincklif nije se kvalifikovao za Indi, ostali su prekobrojni on i Pipa Man.

 

U "brzih 9" usli su Kastroneves, Karpenter, Pazeno, Pauer, Borde, Pigot, Njugarden, Dikson i Danika Patrik, oni ce sutra imati sansu za kvalifikacije za pol. Sva cetiri Penskija i sva tri Karpenterova bolida - sve Seviji, Hondinu cast brane Borde i Dikson.

 

Dakle, sutra prvo kvalifikacije od 10 - 33 mesta (obrnutim redosledom od plasmana danas, prvo najsporiji) a onda "brzih 9".

 

Sto se tice Hincklifa, on ima sansu da startuje Indi u varijanti da "kupi" bolid od nekog drugog - naime, za Indi se kvalifikuje bolid a ne vozac, i izmene vozaca su dozvoljene, u tom slucaju on bi startovao kao poslednji, 33. bez obzira gde se kvalifikovao "kupljeni" bolid. Ovo smo zadnji put imali pre neku godinu kad se Hanter-Rej nije kvalifikovao za Indi pa je Andreti za njega otkupio jedan od Fojtovih bolida.

[Rad-oh-yeah?]

Hinchcliffe, Mann bumped from Indy 500; Castroneves, Patrick in Fast 9



By: Robin Miller | 16 minutes ago


Saturday’s preliminary round of qualifying at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was good for Team Penske, Ed Carpenter Racing and Chevrolet.

But it’s a bummer for James Hinchcliffe and Pippa Mann, who were bumped from the lineup.

Helio Castroneves, a four-time pole-sitter at Indy who is making his only IndyCar appearance of the year this month, posted the fastest average speed of 228.919mph in his Pennzoil Chevy.

“It was very good, very solid and we kept the same pace all four laps so I was happy,” said the three-time Indy 500 winner who is a full-time sports car driver for Penske.

And Ed Carpenter brought the small but enthusiastic crowd to its feet with a spirited run averaging 228.692mph in the Fuzzy’s Chevy to claim the second spot of the Fast 9.

“My car was crazy fast,” said the two-time Indy pole sitter who went out in much tougher conditions in the final hour. “I was trying to calculate how brave to be on my last lap but there was no need to do anything crazy.”

Until Carpenter’s heroics, it was looking like a Penske Perfect day as Simon Pagenaud and Will Power were sitting second and third.

Pagenaud would up third with a 228.304mph average in the Menard’s Chevy and Power settled for fourth at 228.194mph in the Verizon Chevy.

“We knew the Penske cars were going to be fast and I want to take my hat off to Chevrolet because they’ve really stepped up their game,” said the 2016 IndyCar champion.

Power turned the quickest now-tow speed of 229mph on Friday and had to settle for fourth fastest.

“The conditions are a lot different today but I have a very balanced car and I got faster on every lap so we’ll be going for the pole tomorrow,” he said.

Sebastien Bourdais continued his solid month by putting the Coyne/Sullivan/Vasser SealMaster Honda in the fifth slot with a 228.090mph average.

Spencer Pigot, given a full-time shot by Carpenter in 2018, repaid his car owner and had a solid average of 228.052mph to secure the sixth position.

The final three spots of the Fast 9 were Josef Newgarden, the fourth member of Penske’s armada, who checked in with the seventh best time, while Scott Dixon was eighth in the Chip Ganassi PNC Honda and Danica Patrick ninth in the GoDaddy Chevy with a four-lap average of 227.610mph.

It was quite an achievement for Patrick, who has not been in an Indy car for seven years.

“I’m very happy with this car; Ed’s [Carpenter] team has made me very comfortable,” said Patrick, the only women ever to lead the Indy 500.

Hinchcliffe, the pole-sitter here in 2016 and one of the most popular drivers in IndyCar, was bumped in the closing 45 minutes and suffered a severe vibration when he attempted to go back out with just minutes remaining. He was sitting in line when the 5:50 p.m. gun sounded to end the session.

“We win as a team; we lose as a team,” he said. “It’s crazy to be here after where we were two years ago. But we’ll put our heads down, we’ll take a look at it, and we’ll learn from this experience. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, for sure.”