Penske’s Will Power hopes fast practice lap leads to Indy 500 pole

May 19, 2016

INDIANAPOLIS — Team Penske’s Will Power turned the fastest practice lap of the week in preparation for the Indianapolis 500 late Friday afternoon, reaching 232.672 mph in his Team Penske Chevrolet.

Josef Newgarden (Ed Carpenter Racing) also topped 232 mph as cars with Chevrolet engines and aerodynamics paced the action for the first time all week. But Honda’s entries are right there, taking positions 3-10 on the speed charts, led by James Hinchcliffe (Schmidt Peterson Motorsports) at 231.972 mph. All five Andretti Autosport Hondas posted top-ten speeds.

The lead-up to qualifications for the historic 100th running of the Indy 500 was notably safer than what took place a year ago, when three Chevrolet cars got upside down during a treacherous week of practice.

Last year, the series reacted by taking away the extra turbo boost intended for qualifying and required teams to qualify their cars in race trim. That resulted in a relatively low pole speed by Scott Dixon of 226.790 in a year when series officials openly talked about trying to break the IMS track record of 236.986 mph established by Arie Luyendyk in 1996.

In general, the 2016 model Indy cars from Honda and Chevrolet, with a year’s worth of subtle aerodynamic development, look to be more stable than those from a year ago. On Friday, teams were granted the extra 1.5 inches of turbocharger boost, resulting in an additional 40-50 …

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