It is time for the Indianapolis 500. Four practice days, two qualifying days, another practice days, three days off, another practice session and a parade are all that stand between now and the 107th Indianapolis 500.
With 34 drivers entered, one will end next Sunday on the outside while 33 of his or her colleagues will compete to add their bust to the BorgWarner Trophy. The manufacturers have equal representation, 17 Hondas and 17 Chevrolets. There are nine past winners in this year's race, just like 2021, and it is the fourth "500" to feature at least nine past winners. Four rookies are entered.
There is much more to cover ahead of this Indianapolis 500. Let's break down what to remember as practice is set to start.
What is the schedule?
Practice opens on Tuesday May 16 at 9:00 a.m. ET for a two-hour and 15 minute veterans oval session. After an hour and 45-minute break, the rookie orientation and refresher will start at 1:00 p.m. ET and last for two hours. At 3:00 p.m. ET, the track will open to all entries for three hours.
For the following three days, practice will start at noon and end at 6:00 p.m. each day. The qualifying draw will take place at 6:15 p.m. ET on Friday May 19.
On Saturday, there will be a one-hour practice held at 8:30 a.m. The field will be split in half and each will get 30 minutes of track time during that one hour. Qualifying will commence at 11:00 a.m. and conclude at 5:50 p.m.
At the end of Saturday, the fastest 12 cars will advance to the Fast 12 session on Sunday. Qualifiers 13th through 30th will be locked into the 107th Indianapolis 500. Cars ranked 31st, 32nd, 33rd and 34th will compete in the last chance qualifying session.
Sunday will have a one-hour session for the Fast 12 at 11:30 a.m. with another hour of practice following for the last chance qualifiers. At 2:00 p.m., the Fast 12 round will take place. The Fast Six will advance to the final round of qualifying while rows three and four will be set.
Last chance qualifying will begin at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday and set the final row. Each car will be guaranteed one attempt with multiple attempts possible until the one-hour session expires. At 5:15 p.m., the Fast Six round will take place to determine pole position.
On Monday May 22, a two-hour practice session will be held at 1:00 p.m.
What is the forecast?
Showers are set to greet everyone at the start of Tuesday, but the hope is for it to clear up around 2:00 p.m. local time. Chance of precipitation is at 57% with a high around 71º F with north northwest winds at 8 mph.
The good news is sunny skies are forecasted for Wednesday and Thursday with a high of 74º F Wednesday and 75º F on Thursday. Friday will have cloudy skies and a 24% chance of precipitation, but a high of 82º F. Winds will be about 11 mph from the south southwest.
Rain is in the forecast for Saturday. There is a 50% chance of precipitation in the morning and becoming more intermittent in the afternoon. The high drops to 71º F with a west northwest wind at 12 mph. Conditions look better on Sunday, cloudy but chance of precipitation drops to 11%. The high remains around 74º F with an 8-mph wind out of the north northwest.
For the Monday practice, partly cloudy skies with a 76º F high and a 7-mph wind from the east northeast is set to meet the 33 qualified teams for the Indianapolis 500.
Who will participate in Rookie Orientation and the Refresher?
Since 33 cars participated in the open test held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in April, the only entry that has to complete rookie orientation is the #50 Abel Motorsports Chevrolet for RC Enerson. The Abel entry had only been confirmed days leading up to the open test and the car was not ready to take to the track in April.
Though this isn't Enerson's first Indianapolis 500 qualifying attempt, he will have to complete rookie orientation as he failed to qualify for the 2021 race, meaning his is still considered a rookie.
The Rookie Class
Four rookies are entered in this year's Indianapolis 500.
Besides the aforementioned RC Enerson, Sting Ray Robb, Benjamin Pedersen and Agustín Canapino will attempt to make their first Indianapolis 500.
Robb and Pedersen are both coming from the Road to Indy path. Both drivers spent the last two years competing in Indy Lights, and they both won races last year. Canapino spent the previous 15 years competing in touring car and sports car series in his native Argentina.
At 33 years old, Canapino is the oldest of this year's rookie field while Robb is the youngest at 21 years of age. Entering 2023, 791 drivers have started the Indianapolis 500.
Who is not there?
Only five drivers from the 106th Indianapolis 500 will not be making an attempt in the 107th Indianapolis 500.
Two of those drivers were with A.J. Foyt Racing last year. The Foyt team has decreased from three entries to two entries at Indianapolis this May. This has sidelined J.R. Hildebrand, who had started 12 consecutive Indianapolis 500s from his runner-up finish in 2011 to his 12th-place finish last year. Hildebrand had four top ten finishes at Indianapolis and he completed all 500 miles on ten occasions. He was only one lap down in 2019 and the only retirement he had was in 2013 when he had an accident on lap four of the race. Hildebrand had been the top Foyt finisher the previous two years at Indianapolis.
Dalton Kellett is not back with A.J. Foyt Racing. Kellett had finished 31st, 23rd and 27th in his three Indianapolis 500 starts.
Juan Pablo Montoya is not returning after running as an additional McLaren driver the previous two years. Montoya had not run at Indianapolis from 2018 to 2020 prior to his return with McLaren. In seven Indianapolis 500 starts, the Colombian won twice, had a fifth, a sixth, a ninth, an 11th and was 33rd in the 100th edition of the race.
For the first time since 2013, Sage Karam is not entered for the Indianapolis 500. Karam had finished ninth as a rookie in 2014 and was seventh in 2021. Last year, Karam had an accident on the final lap knock him down to 23rd. He finished outside the top twenty in six of his nine starts. Eight of his nine starts were with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.
Jimmie Johnson is not making a second Indianapolis 500 start in 2023. Johnson qualified 12th in last year's race before sliding back and running mostly outside the top twenty. He led two laps during a pit cycle before having an accident in turn two on lap 194.
What trends should we know for the Fast 12 and the race?
Topping the no tow report matters. Last year, all three drivers to top the no tow report during practice made the Fast 12. Since 2016, only once has a driver topped a no tow report and not started in the top 12. That was Jack Harvey in 2020, who topped the no tow report in Thursday practice that year.
Last year, Rinus VeeKay, Will Power and Takuma Sato topped the no tow report on the three practice days. They all made the Fast 12. Only VeeKay made the Fast Six. Sato and Power both started on row four.
Though VeeKay, Power and Sato all topped the no tow report, Alexander Rossi's average no tow position over those three practice days was the best, averaging fifth over the three days, but Rossi qualified 20th.
Sato topped all three practice days overall. Scott Dixon had the second best average overall practice position and won his second consecutive pole position. Dixon's no tow report average ranked fourth. The New Zealander was second on the first two practice days and fifth on Fast Friday.
Eight of the top nine cars in average overall practice result made the Fast 12. However, the other four Fast 12 participants ranked 14th (Tony Kanaan), 17th (Power), 21st (Ed Carpenter) and 27th (Romain Grosjean) in said category. The only car among the top nine that didn't make the Fast 12 was David Malukas, and Malukas qualified 13th.
Honda had a slight edge last year in the Fast 12, taking seven of 12 spots, and Honda held that edge into the Fast Six with four participants. In the prior two years, Honda had taken 15 of 18 Fast Nine positions.
Only two teams were represented in the Fast Six last year: Chip Ganassi Racing and Ed Carpenter Racing. A further four more teams were represented in the Fast 12. Arrow McLaren had two cars while Andretti Autosport, Dale Coyne Racing and Team Penske each had one. The final Fast 12 spot went to the fifth Ganassi entry for Jimmie Johnson.
Last year, Marcus Ericsson's practice results were fourth, seventh and fourth. Since 2012, only three Indianapolis 500 winners were not in the top five overall on any practice days (Kanaan, Juan Pablo Montoya and Hélio Castroneves). Only twice has the Indianapolis 500 not been in the top ten for multiple practice days (Power and Castroneves).
However, only once in the last 11 years has an Indianapolis 500 winner topped a pre-qualifying practice session. That was Ryan Hunter-Reay in 2014, who topped the Monday pre-qualifying practice day.
Who should be nervous about bumping?
Only one car will fail to qualify for the Indianapolis 500, but while all it will take is beating one car in qualifying, it will still be a nerve-wracking pair of qualifying days for a handful of teams, and there is a clear break between the haves and the have-nots.
Abel Motorsports with Enerson tops the list. It is a team attempting its IndyCar debut with a car that has not been on track while the other 33 entries all participated in the open test last month.
Though Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing had an encouraging Grand Prix of Indianapolis, the team's superspeedway concerns should still be there. Its three cars qualified 24th, 27th and 28th at Texas in April. In last year's Indianapolis 500, two of its three entries started on the last row. There was no threat of bumping last year, but none of those cars showed great speed and Graham Rahal was the best qualifier in 21st.
At the open test in April, RLLR's cars were 23rd (Rahal), 26th (Christian Lundgaard) 28th (Jack Harvey) and 32nd (Katherine Legge). Legge hasn't run an IndyCar race nor an oval race since her 2013 Indianapolis 500 appearance.
Two other teams had all of its drivers in the bottom nine at the test. Santino Ferrucci might have been the fastest A.J. Foyt Racing driver but he was only 25th while teammate Benjamin Pedersen was the slowest, albeit only 0.0008 seconds off Legge. Agustín Canapino has only one oval start to his name and he was 27th in testing with Juncos Hollinger Racing, but Callum Ilott was 31st as Ilott gears up for his second Indianapolis appearance.
Ilott, Legge and Pedersen were the only drivers not to run a lap in the 221-mph bracket at the test.
Dale Coyne Racing's Sting Ray Robb and Andretti Autosport's Devlin DeFrancesco were interlopers at the bottom of the time sheet in testing in 29th and 30th.
What will this race mean for the championship?
Unlike the previous nine Indianapolis 500, this race will not be worth double points. The winner will not get 100, but the regular 50. The qualifying bonus points remain with the pole-sitter getting 12 points and it decreasing by one point for the remaining spots in the top 12.
Combined with bonus points for leading laps, the most points a driver can walkaway with after the 107th Indianapolis 500 is 65 points. The fewest is five points.
The one thing we did learn with double points at the Indianapolis 500 is it did not alter the championship that much, at least not for the race winner. The race winner may have finished two or three spots better than if Indianapolis had not been double points but at no time over the nine years did the Indianapolis 500 winner go on to win the championship. The most recent "500" winner to take the title that same year was Dario Franchitti in 2010.
In the nine years with double points, the average championship finish for the Indianapolis winner was 7.444. In the nine years prior to double points (2005-2013), the average championship finish for the Indianapolis winner was 6.111. In each of those stretches, a part-time driver won the Indianapolis 500 (Dan Wheldon in 2011 and Hélio Castroneves in 2021). If you remove both those part-time drivers, the average championship finish for the Indianapolis winner improves to 3.375 for the last eight seasons without double points and to 5.625 for the eight seasons with double points.
In six of nine double points Indianapolis 500s, the championship lead changed after the race. Ericsson went from eighth to the championship lead. In the nine Indianapolis 500s prior to double points, only three times did the championship lead change after the race. With 65 points on the table for a race victory, only the top nine in the championship could leave Indianapolis as the championship leader.
Seven of 11 Indianapolis 500 winners in the DW12-era have been first-time winners. Takuma Sato is the only driver to have won multiple Indianapolis 500s in the DW12 chassis.
