IndyCar: Oriol Servia drives for Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports in open test

By Asher Fair | Apr 25, 2019

FORT WORTH, TX - JUNE 07: Oriol Servia of Spain , driver of the #4 National Guard Panther Racing Chevrolet, during qualifying for the IZOD IndyCar Series Firestone 550 at Texas Motor Speedway on June 7, 2013 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images for Texas Motor Speedway) /

Oriol Servia drove for Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports in the IndyCar open test at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Wednesday.

Heading into Wednesday’s IndyCar test sessions at Indianapolis Motor Speedway ahead of the 103rd running of the Indianapolis 500 next month, 34 drivers had been confirmed on the entry list for the race. Of those 34 drivers, 29 drivers had been confirmed as participants in at least one of Wednesday’s test sessions at the track.

While only 29 drivers ended up taking to the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in Speedway, Indiana on Wednesday, one of them was not one of the 29 drivers who was previously confirmed as a participant.

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing’s Sage Karam was supposed to participate in this test session, but he ended up not doing so as a result of the fact that his teammate, J.R. Hildebrand, participated in it and the team were only allowed to use one engine in it.

Oriol Servia ended up driving the #77 Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda in the refresher test, which was the second and final test session. This session was combined with the Rookie Orientation Program.

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The three originally scheduled test sessions were postponed due to rain, and the third test session that was supposed to feature all of the drivers who showed up to participate in at least one of the sessions ended up being canceled in the end anyway due to more rain.

Servia recorded a top lap time of 40.4031 seconds (222.755 miles per hour). He recorded this lap time of the 37th of the 38 laps that he recorded in this test session, which was good enough to put him in third place on the speed chart out of the nine drivers who participated in this session.

Servia trailed only Harding Steinbrenner Racing rookie Colton Herta and Team Penske veteran Helio Castroneves.

The 44-year-old Spaniard has not yet officially been confirmed as Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ third driver for this year’s running of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”, as there are other drivers still in the mix as far as driving the #77 Honda is concerned, but the fact that he participated in this test session adds to the speculation that he will end up being their third driver for it alongside their full-time drivers, James Hinchcliffe and rookie Marcus Ericsson.

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Will Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports confirm Oriol Servia as their third driver for the 103rd running of IndyCar‘s most prestigious race, the Indianapolis 500? If so, when will they do so, and if not, who will their third driver be?

The race itself is not scheduled to take place until Sunday, May 26, but practice is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, May 14. In additional, qualifying for the race is scheduled to take place on Saturday, May 18 and Sunday, May 19, so expect to know the answers to these questions relatively soon.