The good news is that every single IndyCar team entered in the 109th running of the Indy 500 has multiple cars, meaning that all 12 teams are guaranteed to be in the race since just one car will be left on the outside looking in come Bump Day.
The bad news is that one team will end up being the only team not to place 100% of their cars in the 33-car field for the 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval.
This is the third consecutive year of Indy 500 bumping, something that, believe it or not, has never previously been the case in the DW12 era. And for the third year in a row, it will indeed be just one single car, and one single driver, who fail to make it into the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing".
Here are the three teams most likely to find themselves in a bad position come Bump Day.
3 teams most likely to flop in Indy 500 qualifying
1. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Honda
I can't ignore the obvious one here. If you take the last car in and the only car out in each of the last two years, three of those four cars are Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing cars. The other is a crashed-out backup car that never had a chance.
All year last year, there was talk of the team's alleged "Indy Recovery Plan" after three of their cars were involved in the 2023 Bump Day shootout, and aside from Takuma Sato's strong qualifying performance, there was literally zero progress – even after a confident Graham Rahal called out a media member on social media for making this very prediction.
Sato was strong in the open test, but we have yet to see anything close to the step forward this team needs to take to avoid being in this discussion for a third straight year. And quite frankly, their lineup is not even as strong as it was last year.
2. Dale Coyne Racing, Honda
And now let's talk about the wrecked backup car.
Dale Coyne Racing's No. 18 Honda missed the race last year after Nolan Siegel crashed in practice and had to move to a backup car which never had anything close to field of 33 pace. Bump Day was merely a formality to confirm Siegel wouldn't be in the race, but he least he went out giving it his all with a weekend-ending wreck on his final qualifying run.
Rinus VeeKay has been extremely strong in his first year with Dale Coyne Racing, and he finds himself inside the top 10 in the championship standings, ahead of even two-time reigning Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden of Team Penske. He has also never qualified lower than seventh for the Indy 500 in five previous starts with Ed Carpenter Racing.
But rookie Jacob Abel has not yet been remotely competitive, placing everywhere from 23rd through 27th – the bottom five spots in the order – in each of the first five races of the season.
The No. 51 Honda is as close as it gets to being a Bump Day lock, and Abel is my pick to miss the race. At least the Danny Sullivan Miller High Life throwback livery should get some quality TV time on Bump Day.
3. Prema Racing, Chevrolet
Prema Racing knew what they signed up for by joining IndyCar, but even with the knowledge of how challenging it would be to compete at a high level, I don't think they quite expected the kind of struggles they have experienced so far in 2025.
Expect those struggles to continue for both cars, neither of which has placed higher than 18th this season, in the week leading up to Indy 500 qualifying.
This team is in for a 2019 McLaren-sized rude awakening if they don't get it together, and fast. The only thing keeping either Callum Ilott or rookie Robert Shwartzman from being my pick to miss the race entirely is the fact that Chevrolet had an edge over Honda in qualifying last year, but after the open test, I'm not so sure that that advantage still exists.
Indy 500 qualifying is set to be shown live on Fox and Fox Sports 1 on Saturday, May 17 and Sunday, May 18. The race itself is set to be shown live on Fox from Indianapolis Motor Speedway beginning at 10:00 a.m. ET on Sunday, May 25. Start a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss any of the action!