Caio Collet had the fastest speed of two day IndyCar Open test in this morning’s session at 226. 381 miles per hour. The speed held through the afternoon round, which was led by Josef Newgarden at 225.617.
Practice began 75 minutes late as the track dried from overnight and morning rain, bvut once things started, the morning session got very busy quickly.
The 24 year old Brazilian rookie driver for A J Foyt Racing was very happy with his run, but a bit surprised.
“No, no, never expected that,” Brazilian driver Collet said. “Obviously, the team has a good background here and has done really, really well the last couple of years, especially last year. As a rookie, I was just trying to learn things and see how everything went. But the team, they did a really good job and got me up to speed quickly, and I got really comfortable.
“Obviously, a lot of things I still have to learn, especially in traffic. I have to understand how to manage traffic and how to get by people. But I think by myself I felt really good, and the team gave me a really good car both days.”
The cool, windy afternoon was not without issues. A caution came out as a fox scampered across the track between turns 1 and 2. IndyCar’s television partner just had to get a plug in.
Katherine Legge completed the two phases of the refresher program with an hour alone on the track and the remainder during the final practice.
Late in the session, Jack Harvey’s car began trailing a large plume of smoke between turns and three and four. The white contrail followed Harvey into the pits where he was greeted by the AMR Safety Team. The wind took the smoke cloud southward through the pits where it lingered for a minute or two.
While a loo at the combined results of the four sessions shows Collet on top, some things stand out. Newgarden and Conor Daly were consistently near the front of the charts. Takuma Sato finished seventh overall but showed consistent lap times.
Alex Palou ranks fourth on the combined sheet driving e the car in which he won Long Beach. How fast will, he be in his speedway car?
I was struck by the /slowness of the Andretti cars- Will Power 18th, Kyle Kirkwood 27th, and Marcus Ericsson 31st.
It was fun to see cars on track in oval trim. Next week’s Sonsio Grand Prix may be a bit anticlimactic..
Notes
Some sad news today as we learned of the death of Merle Bettenhausen. Bettenhausen is the last of the Bettenhausen family, whose patriarch, Tony, won two national titles. He achieved on of his titles without winning a race.
Merle’s brother Gary was a talented driver popular with fans in the 80s. Another brother, Tony, drove and then owned a champ car team until his death in a plane crash.
I will have a more detailed story about Merle and his family on Friday.
Happier stuff
IMS looked race weekend ready this week. The grounds crew obviously has worked hard to make the facility almost sparkle.
Saturday the Month of May kicks off with the Mini Marathon in the morning and the REV event at IMS at night. Preparations for REV were underway this we3ek.
It appears that the track is about 10 days away from selling out the grandstands.
The 2028 car may be revealed sometime this month.
Thanks for following along the past two deays. I’m justb getting started.
The Pit Window by Mike Silver 