Rick Mears, the only six-time Indy pole-winner in history (and an 11-time front-row starter in 15 starts!) will tell anyone who asks that a four-lap qualifying run around Indianapolis Motor Speedway is as intense as motorsport gets.
On the ragged edge with high boost and low downforce, a driver will find himself hurtling toward Turn 1 and/or Turn 3 – depending on wind direction – at around 240mph. He’ll be monitoring revs and endeavoring to keep the engine in its narrow power band, so if there’s a really strong headwind on the front or back straight, the team can give him three top gears to flick between whenever he feels the revs dropping out of the sweet spot.
Simultaneously – yeah, simultaneously – he’s adjusting the tools to remove drag on the straights, then adjusting them some more to add downforce and tire bite in the turns, trying to keep the line as shallow as possible from outside wall down to white line and out again, to scrub off as little speed as possible. And as the Firestones’ gently slip from their summit of grip over the course of the four laps, the driver will also need to consider sliver-thin adjustments to his line through each turn, and at what point on the lap he adjusts the weight jacker, etc. And of course if it’s as windy as this year’s Fast Friday – gusts approaching 40mph – that’s another parameter to consider.
That’s what it takes to stay ahead of a car that’s lapping Indy at an average of 230mph, and it makes the qualifying sessions compelling viewing.
This year, with only 33 entries, every car is guaranteed a starting slot, so there will be no Bump Day drama, so IndyCar decided that pizazz must be added to proceedings at the front end of the field. Hence, a new qualifying format for the umpteenth time in not many years.
Day 1 of qualifying, Saturday, will start with a 90-minute practice, 8.30-10.00am for all cars. Qualifying itself will run from 11.00 until 5:50pm ET, in which each entry is guaranteed one attempt and can make multiple attempts until time expires. As per tradition, the order of initial qualifying runs will be determined on Friday evening by hand-picked draw.
Once every car has made at least one attempt to qualify, teams have to choose between two lanes for subsequent attempts. Cars in the Priority lane, Lane 1, will get their next chance to qualify before anyone in Lane 2, but there is greater risk involved, too, because those in Lane 1 have their previous qualifying run deleted. Those in Lane 2 will take longer to get back on track, but should they fail to improve, their previous speed remains valid.
When the gun goes off at 5.50pm, any car not on track is done for the day, and drivers not in the top 12 are done for the weekend, because positions 13 through 33 are now set.
Sunday, Day 2 of qualifying, is all about determining the order of the front four rows of three. These 12 cars will get a 90-minute practice from 12.30pm until 2.00pm. Then at 4.00pm, qualifying will commence in order of Saturday times, slowest first, with all receiving one guaranteed four-lap run. The results of this session will determine Rows 3 and 4 or positions 12 through 7 on the grid. The top six will then advance to a Fast Six shootout.
Now here’s where it gets unusual for onlookers and extremely busy for the teams involved. In between the Top 12 and Fast Six session, the quick sextet will circulate the track at 100mph behind the Corvette Z06 pace car, ostensibly a “fan salute” but in fact to allow cooling air through the ducts and into the engines before the final shootout.
Before and after these pace laps, two five-minute work windows will be allowed, where teams can add or remove sidepod shutters, add fuel, adjust front and rear wings and change tire pressures. In the five-minute work window after the pace laps, the teams can (and will) change tires.
In previous years, the Sunday involved a Fast Nine shootout, in which each driver ran just a single ultra on-the-edge four-lap run, like his effort from the day before to get into that Fast Nine. This year, the drivers in the Fast Six will have completed at least one attempt on Saturday and then two such runs on Sunday.
Three-time Indy 500 pole-winner Ed Carpenter remarked: “I do love qualifying here, but I don't know that I love doing two runs within 30 minutes. It's kind of nice to do one and then recharge the batteries a little bit because it is stressful and draining, even though it's [only] four laps.
“But it's the same for everyone. It'll be interesting for sure. The only times that I've had to do multiple runs is when we're having a bit of a struggle and you've got to go try to find some more time.
“I've thought about it a lot, trying to figure out exactly what it's going to be like, but it'll largely depend on, one, getting into the Fast 12, and from there what the conditions are. What the balance of the car is will determine how stressful the second run is.”
Carpenter said he approved of the two laps behind the pace car to cool the engine temperatures before the Fast Six battle.
“Yeah, I think that's going to work out pretty well,” he said. “I simulated that, just to kind of see what it was going to be like. Yeah, I think that'll be a good procedure.”
