Young Guns Pace the Field

Saavedra's helmet after the fastest lap of May

For the second straight day of Indy 500 practice, to be fast you had to be young.  This time the fastest lap of the day went to AFS Racing/Andretti Autosport's Sebastian Saavedra.  The 21 year old Colombian drove his #17 Chevrolet-Dallara around the 2.5 mile speedway at a blistering 221.526 mph.  Following closely behind were Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing teammates Josef Newgarden (221.173) and Bryan Clauson (221.158).  Hondas once again dominated the top of the speed charts, with Saavedra being the only Chevy in the top 5.

The 6-hour incident free session featured heavy running during the final hour.  After a day of occasional lapping by 30 different drivers, things finally began to pick up during "happy hour".  Within a 10 minute period, the 221 mph barrier was broken by not one, not two, but three different drivers.  Of course, all three hot laps were aided by tows from other cars.  Rounding out the top 10 were Dixon, Wilson, Hunter-Reay, Hildebrand, Jakes, Hinchcliffe, and Kimball.

With just five practice days remaining until Pole Day on Saturday, can Chevy bridge the gap between itself and Honda? Can Lotus muster anything better than 205 mph?  Stay tuned to Seanny D Covers Indy and @SeannyDIndy for coverage of the 96th Indianapolis 500!

Notes:

• Marco Andretti and Ana Beatriz split duty in Beatriz's #25 entry, with both drivers running the exact same lap time down to the ten-thousandth of a second (41.9101 sec or 214.745 mph)
• Sunday saw the debut of Hinchcliffe, Hunter-Reay, Wade Cunningham, and Townsend Bell.
• Dragon Racing's Sebastien Bourdais and Katherine Legge are still waiting for motors after owner Jay Penske sued Lotus for breach of contract.  Their rumored acquisition of Chevy motors has not come to fruition yet.