Kanaan Tops Final Indy 500 Practice as Herta, Malukas Take Hard Hits – Motorsports Tribune

By David Morgan, Associate Editor

INDIANAPOLIS – Chip Ganassi Racing flexed its muscles again during Friday’s final practice for the 106^th running of the Indianapolis 500 as Tony Kanaan topped the board, but a pair of incidents during the 90-minute session would overshadow the continued success from the Ganassi stable.

Kanaan’s Honda set the fast time of 227.114 mph around the 2.5-mile track, just ahead of teammate Marcus Ericsson at 227.004 mph.

“It’s not important at all,” Kanaan said of being fastest on Friday. “We had a good car all month. We didn’t go out and let’s be fastest on Carb Day. It doesn’t count, doesn’t mean anything. It’s a consequence of a good car that we had all month. You look at teammates, they’re all there.

“Glad it’s been working out for us. After this interview, it doesn’t matter anymore. We’re all going for the race on Sunday.”

Takuma Sato broke up the Ganassi party up front by putting up the third fastest time, just ahead of polesitter Scott Dixon in fourth. Sage Karam would round out the top-five in his Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Chevrolet.

2018 Indianapolis 500 winner Will Power was sixth on the final practice rundown, followed by seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, who put in another solid run in seventh. The remainder of the top-10 went to Pato O’Ward, Marco Andretti, and Felix Rosenqvist.

The first yellow flag of the session came when David Malukas and Santino Ferrucci tangled, leaving Malukas to get the bad end of the deal. As Malukas was making a pass on Ferrucci heading into Turn 1, contact between the two would cut down the right rear tire on Malukas’ car, which in turn caused his No. 18 Honda to spin into the outside wall.

The heavy damage as a result of the impact will make for a long 48 hours for his Dale Coyne Racing with HMD team as they work to get his car back in racing shape for Sunday.