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David Malsher-Lopez

Indy 500: Dixon paces Top 12, huge save by Johnson but misses cut

Two-time Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato was the first out on track and hit 232.165mph on his opening lap in the Dale Coyne Racing with RWR-Honda, which dropped to 231.450mph by his fourth and final lap, to set an average of 231.670mph.

The sole Team Penske-Chevrolet representative in the Top 12, 2018 winner Will Power danced up to the Turn 1 wall twice on his run and said afterward the balance of the car wasn’t as good as in yesterday’s qualifying session, and he ended up behind Sato.

Scott Dixon slammed in a 233.907 for his opener, and even his third lap was 233.616, before he had to lift in Turn 2 on Lap 4 and lost 1mph. Nonetheless his average of 233.510 looked exceedingly strong.

Romain Grosjean, Andretti Autosport-Honda’s only hope, produced an excellent 233.270mph, his fastest lap of the week, but lost almost 2.5mph across the four laps, although his average still left him comfortably ahead of Sato and Power.

Marcus Ericsson produced three 233mph laps to make himself second fastest at the time, although this looked briefly under threat when hometown hero Ed Carpenter delivered 234.244 on his opener. However, he had to pedal it on Laps 2 and 4 and his average only just stayed over the 233 barrier.

Ganassi rookie Jimmie Johnson had a huge moment and great recovery at Turn 1 on his opening lap, but kept his head to deliver a fine 232.9 next time by. However, the speed dissipated rapidly on Laps 3 and 4 and he wound up at the bottom of the speed chart. Nonetheless, he had covered himself in glory by saving the biggest non-crash of the session.

His teammates Alex Palou and Tony Kanaan produced 233.3 and 233.0 averages, both comfortably ahead of Felix Rosenqvist of Arrow McLaren SP-Chevy who rolled out 10th.

Rosenqvist’s teammate Pato O’Ward was over 0.6sec faster than Rosenqvist but was only sixth, meaning he was on the bubble of graduating to the Fast 6 when yesterday’s pacesetter Rinus VeeKay headed out in the second ECR-Chevy. The Dutch youngster delivered a 234.099mph for an opener and kept his head and strong pace to deliver second fastest time, less than 0.1mph behind Dixon.

Advancing to the Firestone Fast Six

P

Name

QSpeed

QLap1Speed

QLap2Speed

QLap3Speed

QLap4Speed

Engine

Team

1

Scott Dixon

233.510

233.907

233.898

233.616

232.623

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

2

Rinus VeeKay

233.429

234.099

233.622

233.153

232.846

Chevy

Ed Carpenter Racing

3

Alex Palou

233.347

233.751

233.481

233.234

232.922

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

4

Marcus Ericsson

233.166

233.484

232.648

233.269

233.266

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

5

Ed Carpenter

233.073

234.244

232.499

233.540

232.023

Chevy

Ed Carpenter Racing

6

Tony Kanaan

233.022

233.202

233.170

232.862

232.854

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

Missing the cut

P

Name

QSpeed

QLap1Speed

QLap2Speed

QLap3Speed

QLap4Speed

Engine

Team

7

Pato O'Ward

232.705

233.476

233.080

232.288

231.983

Chevy

Arrow McLaren SP

8

Felix Rosenqvist

232.182

232.594

232.213

232.208

231.716

Chevy

Arrow McLaren SP

9

Romain Grosjean

231.999

233.270

232.473

231.337

230.931

Honda

Andretti Autosport

10

Takuma Sato

231.670

232.165

231.746

231.450

231.321

Honda

Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR

11

Will Power

231.534

231.968

232.080

231.596

230.500

Chevy

Team Penske

12

Jimmie Johnson

231.264

229.911

232.947

231.854

230.368

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

 

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