Scott Dixon, a champion in the IndyCar Series six times and a winner of the Indy 500 in 2008, zoomed around the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway at a blazing speed of 229.107mph. He was driving the No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.
Even though Marco Andretti, who is only racing in the Indy 500, started strong and had the second-fastest lap in the No. 98 Andretti Herta Honda, he was only 0.1218s behind Dixon.
Takuma Sato, also racing only in the Indy 500 and a two-time winner of the event before, came in third in the No. 75 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) Honda, but he was quite far behind at 0.6194s.
Pato O’Ward from Arrow McLaren was the fastest Chevrolet driver, taking the fourth spot, while Christian Lundgaard from RLL finished fifth.
Rain stopped the practice session after only about 23 minutes of track time. Originally scheduled for two hours in the morning, officials decided to extend the practice session to the end of the day, if the weather allowed.
Only three drivers recorded no-tow speeds, with Scott McLaughlin from Team Penske having the fastest at 219.656 mph.
Josef Newgarden, the current Indy 500 champion, faced issues with his car right from the start and couldn’t do any running.
Kyle Larson, the NASCAR Cup Series champion from 2021, began his Month of May at the Brickyard by being 27th on the leaderboard, completing only two installation laps.
Romain Grosjean from Juncos Hollinger Racing was the first driver on track and ended up 14th with a flying lap of 221.098mph.
Historically, the driver who goes out on track first has never won the Indy 500 and has only finished second once. They have also only qualified on pole twice since 1984.
