Josef Newgarden leads frantic Indy 500 practice; Rasmussen spins

From the very start, Day 3 of Indy 500 practice felt more urgent than the sessions that preceded it. Tempers were short, the action was constant, and drivers pushed closer to that invisible edge until one finally crossed it.

Josef Newgarden topped the time sheets for Team Penske at 226.632mph, which was down from the fastest times set earlier in the week. But still, Penske and Newgarden appear to be the benchmark for the rest of the field. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon ranked second at 225.457mph while Conor Daly continued to impress in the Juncos Hollinger Racing entry, timing in third at 224.893mph.

Pato O’Ward was fourth, Ryan Hunter-Reay fifth, Alex Palou sixth, Colton Herta seventh, Christian Rasmussen eighth, David Malukas ninth, and Scott McLaughlin tenth. 

“Pretty solid week so far,” said Newgarden. “The team’s been doing a lot of great work. We’ve showed up really prepared. We’re still going through the motions – can’t get ahead of ourselves. We’re excited for Fast Friday.

“It’s going to be quite hot tomorrow, so we’re going to try to work around that and forecast the change going into Saturday and Sunday as the temperature is going fluctuate quite a bit from what we’re going to see on Fast Friday.”

Santino Ferrucci, who was open about his frustrations on Wednesday, remained uncomfortable on Thursday. He also let impatience get the better of him as he passed Devlin DeFrancesco in the pit exit lane, crossing the white line with all four tires. This resulted in an immediate drive-through penalty. 

Several drivers struggled with the balance, partly due to the added weight from the hybrid power unit in the rear of the cars. Among them were Graham Rahal, who was worried about crashing the car and told his team “something doesn’t feel right” as he slid the rear around.

Ferrucci and Rahal were the the two slowest drivers on Thursday as well with neither cracking 220mph for average lap speed.

There were bigger and bolder moves in the draft than previous days, but one particular moment drew the ire of Nolan Siegel. He called Rasmussen an “idiot” after the Ed Carpenter Racing driver made a late overtake that forced Siegel to lift.

Rasmussen goes for a ‘lucky’ spin

Kyle Larson ranked 17th on the speed charts at 222.222mph in his quest to complete ‘The Double.’ He was also the latest driver to get out on track after Tony Kanaan piloted his car in the morning veteran’s refresher test. Larson also had a front-row seat to the first on-track incident of the week.

With just under two hours to go, Rasmussen’s car snapped around at the exit of Turn 2. Stunningly, he managed not to completely wreck the car, only touching the outside wall with the right-rear tire as the car spun around.

“I’ve been getting understeer through (Turn) 2 all day, especially with where the wind direction is right now,” Rasmussen told IndyCar on FOX. “I was a little surprised by getting loose there. I got loose in the middle of (Turn) 2 and was kind of walking the car up and then obviously brushed the wall with the right rear. I mean, shoot, it’s what happens. Obviously, not where we wanted to be but I think we have fast cars around here so I still think it’s a positive day. Now we got that out of the way so now we move on.”

Rasmussen was also on 31-lap old tires, which he believes may have contributed to the incident, noting how they may have been pushing too hard for how deep into the stint they were. And with minimal damage, he expected to get back out on track before the session ended, which he succeeded in doing.

Things calmed down quite a lot in the final hour, which is a departure from previous days. Only a handful of cars went out, mostly running qualifying sims. This is when Newgarden jumped to the top of the non-tow speeds, sweeping both speed charts. He reached 222.555mph, denying Kyle Kirkwood the honor of leading the non-tow speeds for three consecutive days. Kirkwood was still second with McLaughlin in third.

Kyffin Simpson ended up running the most laps of anyone, reaching 119 laos completed before the end of the session.

‘Fast Friday’ is up next where we will see the fastest speeds yet as drivers and teams apply the boost in preparation for qualifying this weekend.