The final week of on-track preparation for the 92nd running of the Indianapolis 500 begins today [14 May] and, with eleven drivers having locked themselves in to starting positions for the 25 May event, there will be different priorities up and down pit-road over the next few days.
While those eleven can focus on preparing their cars for the race, another 25 drivers have a balancing act ahead of them, as they decide whether to work on qualifying set-ups to earn one of the final 22 starting positions up for grabs this Saturday and Sunday, or work on race set-up to be competitive in the 500 next weekend.
“You have 18 hours of practice, plus the practice time that will be available over the weekend as well,” IRL president of competition and operations Brian Barnhart pointed out, “[Teams] will have to manage it wisely. I anticipate that you will see some scenarios, maybe not on Wednesday, but on Thursday, where you will have some pretty big groups of cars running, maybe eight or ten cars running together, which is going to be co-operation between multiple teams going out there.
“If you are a team that is working on your qualifying set-up and you see that going on, you are not going to go out there and interact with that. You are going to have low downforce, and you are not going to mess with that kind of turbulence. It is just a matter of being smart of when you are doing what you are doing. You are going to work on both. If you want to focus on the full race stuff, you are going to load it up with downforce and have a run with them but, if not, you are going to wait and try to find your own space on the track.”
For rookie Graham Rahal, who found himself on the qualifying 'bubble' most of Pole Day before being knocked down to twelfth by Hideki Mutoh, most of the work ahead will be on race set-up despite the need to still qualify for the race.
