INDIANAPOLIS — The first round of qualifying on Saturday (May 21) for the 106th Indianapolis 500 ended with positions 13-33 finalized ahead of the final round of qualifying on Sunday (May 22) where positions 1-12 will be determined.
There were many twists and turns to the first round of qualifying, so let’s get into them.
Before qualifying started, there were two major issues. Juan Pablo Montoya lost his 9th place in line after failing pre-qualifying technical inspection for a broken part, per the team. During the pre-qualifying practice, Stefan Wilson’s No. 25 Chevrolet had a gearbox issue where second and third gears were put in the wrong order, causing the engine to momentarily turn 16,000 rpm and at risk of imminent failure.
Wilson’s team changed the engine in their car, but the car never made it to the track the rest of the day. However, Colton Herta had an engine go sour on him on his warmup lap and the Andretti Autosport crew put everybody they could onto the No. 26 Honda to get it back onto the track.
Herta completed a qualifying run that put him in 25th place, but Wilson’s car never left the garage. Many different teams came together to help put the Dragnospeed/Cusick entry together, but were all of those organizations stretched to the point that no personnel could be spared to give Wilson a run?
There were two other major issues in qualifying. Marco Andretti had a temporary loss of power through turn 4 on his second lap, which compromised his attempt. It later emerged that Andretti had to get on the brakes pretty significantly coming through turn 3 as he was getting the No. 98 Andretti/Herta Autosport Honda up to speed.
Andretti had to slow the car down because Takuma Sato was still on track instead of using the pit road apron at the end of the backstretch to slow down. Sato’s first qualifying run was thrown out and the No. 51 Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing Honda had to qualify again, Sato putting the car in 12th place and…
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