IndyCar: Slight change made to Indy 500 schedule
By Asher Fair
IndyCar has announced a slight schedule change leading up to this year’s running of the Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Along with the confirmation that Wednesday’s practice session for the 106th running of the Indy 500 was canceled due to rain, a confirmation that was really nothing but a formality, IndyCar announced another schedule change leading up to this year’s edition of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”.
Following qualifying (updated format here) this coming Saturday and Sunday, there are two more practice sessions scheduled to take place before the 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in Speedway, Indiana on Memorial Day Sunday, May 29.
The first of those two practice sessions is scheduled to take place on Monday, May 23. But instead of running from 12:00 p.m. ET to 2:00 p.m. ET, that session is now scheduled to run from 1:00 p.m. ET to 3:00 p.m. ET. Peacock Premium is still slated to provide live coverage.
The reason for this change is to “give teams that participated in Top 12 Qualifying and the Firestone Fast Six on Sunday, May 22 more time to change to their ‘500’ race engines”.
The other 21 teams, which qualified from 13th to 33rd place on Saturday, May 21, will be allowed to change their engines on Sunday, as they will not have the opportunity to run any laps on the second day of qualifying.
Practice is still scheduled to resume tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. ET, weather permitting, and run through 6:00 p.m. ET, with live coverage provided by Peacock Premium.
The weather forecast looks much clearer tomorrow than it did today, which most teams entered under the assumption that there would not be any track time. There is only a 10% chance of rain in Speedway tomorrow, according to The Weather Channel.
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Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing’s Takuma Sato, a two-time Indy 500 race winner, topped the speed chart in the opening practice session on Tuesday. Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay topped the no-tow speed chart.