The starting line-up for the one hundred and first running of the Indianapolis 500 was set on Sunday afternoon at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
It was another history-making day as the Fast Nine battled to try and add their names to the annals of Indy 500 history by claiming pole. Here are Pole Day’s talking point.
Scott Dixon claims pole
Honestly, I can’t remember seeing four more perfect laps from anyone around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway than the ones we saw from the Queensland-born New Zealander on Sunday afternoon. Dixon, cool as you like – they don’t call him The Iceman for nothing – ripped off four incredible circuits of the 2.5-mile superspeedway to claim pole, posting an average speed of 232.164mph (373.632kmh).
That four-lap average is the fastest we’ve seen anyone qualify around IMS in 21 years. You have to go back to the 1996 race, the first year of the ugly CART-Indy Racing League civil war that damaged open wheel racing in America so heinously, to the two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Arie Luyendyk’s epic run back in 1996.
You can’t say enough about Dixon. As someone tweeted during qualifying today – a tweet aimed at IndyCar newcomers – the rapid Kiwi is probably the best driver you’ve never heard of. Dixon has an Indianapolis 500 win and four IndyCar Series championships to go along with 39 wins and 89 podiums in a glittering fifteen-year career.
A win on Sunday, and there’ll be no doubt that Dixon belongs in the conversation for best ever IndyCar drivers alongside names like Unser, Mears, Andretti, Foyt and Rutherford. He’s that good, folks.
Rossi and Carpenter sit on the front row
Defending Indianapolis 500 champion Alexander Rossi was sitting on pole before Dixon’s insane laps and was thus relegated to the middle of row one – which still a great starting position. A year ago, Rossi was an unknown and rode a great fuel strategy to an unlikely victory in the one hundredth Indianapolis 500.
This year, he’s been there or thereabouts all month, and going back-to-back certainly isn’t out of the question.
Local hero Ed Carpenter, a two-time Indianapolis 500 pole winner and noted oval specialist, will start from the outside of the front row. He went out last in qualifying after being the fastest guy on Saturday, but couldn’t match the efforts of Dixon and Rossi. Ed has unfinished business at IMS and will lead the Chevrolet charge on Sunday. Don’t count him out, either.
Will Power
The Aussie qualified his Team Penske Chevrolet in the Fast Nine on Saturday, but made little impact on Sunday, rounding out the group of nine who went for the pole. Still, a ninth starting position isn’t the worst thing in the world. Guys have won it from further back than that. Power will be a contender on Sunday.
Another Australian in the Indy 500
The only good news coming out of Sebastien Bourdais’ horrible accident – aside from the fact that the Frenchman’s surgery was successful overnight, and that he seems intent on returning to IndyCar Series competition as soon as he can – is that James Davison will slide into the cockpit of the Dale Coyne Racing machine.
This will be his third Indianapolis 500 start for the minnow team. It was familiarity with the Coyne organisation that gave the drive to Davison ahead of other possibilities like fellow Australian Matt Brabham or Englishman Stefan Wilson.
Although the Bourdais-Davison primary car was written off in the fiery crash yesterday, Dale Coyne Racing has a backup machine at the speedway, and the crew will be hard at work transforming it from it’s current road course configuration into a car capable of running the speedway. It’s expected that Davison will turn his first laps in practice on Monday. Due to missing qualifying, Davison will be the thirty-third and final starter.
Alonso qualifies fifth
As has been the case all month long, most eyes on Sunday were focused on two-time Formula One World Champion Fernando Alonso, who’s shown consistent and impressive speed in his oval track debut for Andretti-McLaren.
(GEPA pictures/Red Bull Content Pool)
A blown engine necessitated a quick changeover before qualifying, but you’d hardly have noticed. Alonso looked smooth and well in control, posting a four-lap average of 231.300 mph (372.241kmh), which nets him a starting spot in the middle of the second row.
Obviously, Alonso is yet to run an IndyCar race, a completely different animal to practice and qualifying, but with his vast experience and probably a lot of laps this week involving running in the packs we’ll see on race day, there’s no reason why he can’t win this race. What started as a pretty cool story for the Indianapolis 500 could very well become one of the more extraordinary happenings in the history of global motorsport.
Ryan Hunter-Reay impresses
The thing about Indianapolis qualifying is that if you don’t run well and get into the Fast Nine on Saturday, the best you can start is tenth. The Floridian Hunter-Reay, a winner at Indianapolis in 2014, had a rough day yesterday but showed he’ll be a force to contend with in the race, running the fourth-fastest time of the day.
Team Penske’s struggles continue
Saturday was notable for Team Penske’s struggles – unusual for a team that’s won the Indianapolis 500 sixteen times. Unfortunately, Sunday wasn’t much better. Aside from Australia’s Will Power in ninth, it was a bleak day for the usual frontrunners. Two-time winner Juan Pablo Montoya is the next best qualifier in eighteenth, with three-time winner Helio Castroneves in nineteenth.
Rising American star Josef Newgarden starts twenty-second and defending series champion Simon Pagenaud will go from the twenty-third starting spot.
It’s rather shocking to see these talented winners and proven Indianapolis performers so far down the timing sheet. With a week of practice still to come, we’ll keep an eye out for what gains the squad can make ahead of Sunday’s race.
Somehow, someway, you know the Penske brigade will be strong when it matters most: on race day. It wouldn’t be the Indianapolis 500 without Roger Penske’s cars contending.
The Roar’s live Indianapolis 500 coverage
Green flag for the 101st Indianapolis 500 is just after 2:00am AEST next Monday morning, 29 May, and we’ll be live with blog coverage and analysis from the world’s biggest race here on The Roar. Hope you can join us for what promises to be an epic race!
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