Indy 500 practice: Only 7 make pre-qualifying runs, Ed Carpenter leads

Only seven drivers made pre-qualifying practice runs during this morning’s practice session for the 104th running of the Indy 500, and Ed Carpenter led the field.

Chevrolet came out of Fast Friday with their work cut out for them to simply place one driver in Sunday afternoon’s Fast Nine Shootout during today’s opening day of Crown Royal Armed Forces Qualifying for the 104th running of the Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

That was illustrated by the fact that Honda, after taking nine of the top 10 positions on the Fast Friday speed chart overall and sweeping the top nine on the no-tow speed chart, did not run any of their cars in this morning’s final pre-qualifying practice session while Chevrolet ran seven.

Ed Carpenter Racing’s Ed Carpenter was the quickest of these seven drivers, as he recorded a top lap speed of 230.833 miles per hour (38.9893 seconds) around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Brickyard oval in Speedway, Indiana behind the wheel of his #20 Chevrolet.

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This lap was well quicker than his best Fast Friday lap of 229.563 miles per hour (39.2049 seconds), but it still would have only been good enough for 17th place overall.

The other six drivers who turned laps this morning were Ed Carpenter Racing’s Conor Daly, Team Penske teammates Helio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing’s J.R. Hildebrand, Carlin’s Max Chilton and DragonSpeed’s Ben Hanley. Of these six drivers, only Daly and Pagenaud did not run quicker laps than they did on Fast Friday.

Here are the full results of the fourth of seven practice sessions for the 104th running of the Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Rank – Driver – Speed (miles per hour)
1st – Ed Carpenter – 230.833
2nd – Conor Daly – 230.636
3rd – Helio Castroneves – 230.585
4th – Simon Pagenaud – 230.098
5th – J.R. Hildebrand – 228.371
6th – Max Chilton – 228.061
7th – Ben Hanley – 223.416

Without a tow, Pagenaud topped the speed chart with a top lap speed of 230.098 miles per hour (39.1137 seconds) behind the wheel of his #22 Chevrolet, which was his fastest overall lap of the session but not quicker than this fastest no-tow lap on Fast Friday. Of the other six drivers who participated in the session, only Carpenter did not run a lap without a tow.

Of the other five drivers, Hanley was the only one whose fastest top no-tow lap speed was not quicker than his fastest no-tow lap speed on Fast Friday.

Here are the full no-tow results of the fourth practice session for the 104th running of the Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Rank – Driver – Speed (miles per hour)
1st – Simon Pagenaud – 230.098
2nd – Conor Daly – 229.911
3rd – Helio Castroneves – 229.143
4th – J.R. Hildebrand – 228.371
5th – Max Chilton – 228.061
6th – Ben Hanley – 221.816

Next. Top 10 Indianapolis 500 drivers of all-time. dark

Tune in to NBC Sports Gold at 11:00 a.m. ET for the live broadcast of the opening day of Crown Royal Armed Forces Qualifying for the 104th running of the Indy 500 from Indianapolis Motor Speedway.