Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's confirmation of two-time Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato to their driver lineup for the 109th running of the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" means that there are now 34 cars on the entry list.
With the 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval limited to 11 rows of three, the confirmation of Sato means that Bump Day is set to return to the "Racing Capital of the World" for the third year in a row this May.
Somebody who attempts to qualify for the race will ultimately fail to do so, and there is still an outside chance of the entry list growing to 35 cars for the first time since 2021 in the coming weeks.
Who are the drivers most likely to be bumped from this year's Indy 500? Here are the top five.
Graham Rahal
Nobody expected Graham Rahal to be the one and only driver bumped in 2023. Even fewer people expected him to be in that discussion amid the team's alleged "Indy Recovery Plan" implementation for 2024. Yet there he was, battling it out with a Dale Coyne Racing backup car and a 19-year-old kid with one career IndyCar start in Nolan Siegel.
Even Rahal was confident enough to snap at one of the doubters on social media during practice week, before said doubter was proven 100% correct.
Bro. Chill. Some are doing qual sims and some in traffic. Have you looked at no tow reports? Not necessary to send conflicting messages when the focuses for many teams are varied.
— Graham Rahal (@GrahamRahal) May 16, 2024
As cool as it would be to see him atone for the race he should have won in 2021 (and, quite frankly, even 2020, given IndyCar's fractured relationship with red flag consistency), simply getting into the race figures to be another uphill battle. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing have given us no reason to believe in a 2025 resurgence. Yet.