INDIANAPOLIS — Marco Andretti couldn’t believe what he was seeing while approaching turn 3 to warm up for an Indianapolis 500 qualification attempt.
As the No. 98 Andretti/Herta Autosport Honda was approaching the northeastern turn of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to start his first qualifying run on Saturday (May 21), Takuma Sato was driving through the north end of the Speedway on his cool down lap after qualifying at an average speed of 232.196 mph over four laps in his No. 51 Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing Honda.
Instead of going to the warmup lane to the left of the backstretch after his run per usual INDYCAR procedure, Sato was still on the race track, causing Andretti to hit the brakes, compromising the car’s speed going to the warmup lap for the 2020 Indianapolis 500 polesitter’s first qualifying attempt.
After turning one lap of 230.441 mph, Andretti’s car had a temporary loss of engine power that reduced the second lap’s speed to 219.933 mph. After turning the final two laps at speeds of 225.025 mph and 229.339 mph, Andretti averaged 226.108 mph over the four lap qualifying run.
Andretti was vocal about Sato being on the track and the other misfortunes that hit the 2006 Indianapolis 500 runner-up.
“Well to start the lap, I’m on the brakes because Sato’s just stopped in the middle of (turn) 3, so to start a run on the brakes I don’t think is very fair and it should never happen,” Andretti said on the qualifying broadcast. “But I’m really bummed. If they count that as my run, I’m pretty bummed because of the start of that. But anyway then the engine just shut off either electronically or in the engine, we have to figure out what happened. It just shut off, so [it’s a] nightmare right now.
“I don’t know why that should count, like, you shouldn’t have to run into another car on your qualifying lap.”
Takuma Sato had his qualifying run invalidated for impeding the progress of Marco Andretti.
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