Carpenter Fastest On Day One of Indianapolis 500 Qualifying

Ed Carpenter Fastest Again At Indianapolis

Last year's Indianapolis 500 pole-sitter Ed Carpenter ended day one of 2014 time trials on top with a four-lap average of 230.661 MPH. He beat last year's Indianapolis 500 runner-up and Rookie of the Year Carlos Muñoz by 0.201 MPH for the 33 points for fastest qualifier. Hélio Castroneves rounded out the top three with a four-lap average of 230.432 MPH.

James Hinchcliffe was fourth just three days after being cleared to race after suffering a concussion with an average of 230.407 MPH. Will Power rounded out the top five with Marco Andretti in sixth. Simon Pagenaud was seventh quickest one week after winning the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Josef Newgarden made a last second run to improve to eighth with JR Hildebrand bookending the Fast Nine for Ed Carpenter Racing with a four lap average of 230.027 MPH.

Kurt Busch left for Charlotte solidly in the Fast Nine but dropped to tenth. Ryan Hunter-Reay was the penultimate driver on track after withdrawing his tenth fastest time to try and bump out Hildebrand. Hunter-Reay fell to eleventh. Jack Hawksworth was the top rookie in twelfth at 229.816 MPH. Juan Pablo Montoya was thirteenth in his first appearance at Indianapolis in the Month of May since winning in 2000. Justin Wilson and Scott Dixon rounded out the top fifteen.

Mikhail Aleshin was sixteenth with a 229.091 MPH in his second attempt of the day. Ryan Briscoe was struggling to find speed all day and settled for seventeenth quickest at 228.825 MPH. Takuma Sato was eighteen with Briscoe's Ganassi teammate Charlie Kimball in nineteenth and Graham Rahal twentieth.

Sage Karam was twenty-first at 229.650 MPH. Townsend Bell was twenty-second with Tony Kanaan feeling the worse of Ganassi's qualifying troubles in twenty-third at 228.435 MPH. Kanaan's former team and defending Indianapolis 500 winners, KV Racing had Sébastien Bourdais ended up in twenty-fourth. Pippa Mann rounded out the top twenty-fifth.

Sebastián Saavedar was twenty-sixth with Jacques Villeneuve twenty-seventh in his first Indianapolis 500 appearance since his 1995 victory. James Davison was the final qualifier and ended up twenty-eight at 228.150 MPH. Oriol Servià and Carlos Huertas rounded out the top thirty.

Alex Tagliani, Martin Plowman and Buddy Lazier rounded out the thirty-three cars who participated in qualifying today. Should a late entry be announced, these drivers face the possibility of being bumped. Lazier was the slowest qualifier at 226. 543 MPH.

Day two of Indianapolis 500 qualifying begins at 10:15 a.m. ET with group one. Group two will take place at 12:45 p.m. ET should a 34th car be entered. The Fast Nine session will take place at 2:00 p.m. ET with ABC's coverage beginning at 1:00 p.m. ET.