Raphael Matos put his car into the 12th starting spot for the Indianapolis 500 today with a 223.429 mph. Raphael spent most of his day Saturday on the bubble and was unable to put his car into the show until today.
Sarah Fisher was the first to make an attempt today, but she had a major bobble and put up a poor time. She later withdrew that time and made a second attempt, ending up in 21st.
Alex Taglianni made contact with the wall in practice this morning. He was cleared by the infield medical center, but his car was in bad shape. Conquest worked throughout the day to get the car back on track for a qualifying attempt late in the day, but there wasn’t enough speed to get him in the field.
Mike Conway also made heavy contact with the wall in practice this morning. He was sent to Methodist Hospital where he was found to have bruised lungs. We have not yet heard a prognosis, but at this point it might be time for Dreyer and Reinbold to take a pass on Mike. He has wrecked every car they have put under him so far and has not displayed an inate quickness that would justify the risk to the equipment. There are rumors going about that D&R is looking for a replacement for May, but that sounds like it is pure speculation.
As for the other D&R entries: Davey Hamilton qualified 22nd today, Milka Duno has yet to qualify and John Andretti demolished the #42 Petty/D&R entry. Robbie Buhl (co-owner of the team) must have had an absolutely horrible day watching his equipment bouncing off the walls. I have nothing against Davey Hamilton, but I feel it is pretty telling of the caliber of your regular drivers (Conway and Duno) that a 47 year old driver who hasn’t driven full time since his accident in 2001 is outqualifying the rest of the team.
Speaking of John Andretti’s wreck, Graham Rahal was out for practice laps at the same time and almost got collected in the aftermath. Graham pitched the car to the inside of the track to avoid contact and somehow managed to keep the car off the inside fence. His car suffered some suspension damage and will require a very thorough inspection by the team, but appears to be good to go. That has to be a relief to the Newman Haas Lanigan team since they already have two tubs that Doornbos left his mark on slotted for repairs at their Chicago shop.
Ryan Hunter-Reay again was frustrated at his lack of speed. He claims that he is using the same setup as Ed Carpenter who qualified today, but he has no explanation as to why his car can’t go any faster. Ryan was clearly speaking out of frustration, but he did throw out a few comments that cast doubt that his team was giving him the same car as Ed. Clearly, Ryan has been off pace at Indy and at Kansas as well. At the speeds Ryan has been running, he is not a shoe in for a spot on the grid at this point.
Paul Tracy was not satisfied with his first run which started out as the fastest time in the field, but got bumped down to 17th through the course of the afternoon. After text messaging the president of Geico for the go ahead, Paul put in another attempt to take 13th spot. His initial time would have left him 17th on the grid.
Scott Sharp made the most of his attempts today. He used up all three allotted runs for the day and was able to get his last attempt started just before the 6:00 pm gun sounded, much to EJ Viso’s chagrin since he was on the bubble. Scott had previously been bumped twice, but his last run was good enough to get him into 20th spot on the grid. Scott was already drafting up plans in his head to get to Indy for qualifying next weekend, even though he is scheduled to be running the ALMS race at Miller Motorsports Park next weekend.
So the top 22 on the grid look like this:
Pole Day
1 Helio Castroneves 224.864
2 Ryan Briscoe 224.083
3 Dario Franchitti 224.01
4 Graham Rahal 223.954
5 Scott Dixon 223.867
6 Tony Kanaan 223.612
7 Mario Moraes 223.331
8 Marco Andretti 223.114
9 Will Power 223.028
10 Danica Patrick 222.882
11 Alex Lloyd 222.622
Day 2
12 Raphael Matos 223.429
13 Paul Tracy 223.111
14 Vitor Meira 223.054
15 Justin Wilson 222.903
16 Hideki Mutoh 222.805
17 Ed Carpenter 222.781
18 Dan Wheldon 222.777
19 AJ Foyt IV 222.586
20 Scott Sharp 222.162
21 Sarah Fisher 222.082
22 Davey Hamilton 221.956
Buhl sounded absolutely sick on the air Sunday afternoon. It has to be brutal watching the crash damage pile up and only have one car in the field. Kudos to Robby for keeping it together and stay with the broadcast. I’m sure I would have been throwing things around the booth.