A closed -looking crowd nearly 350,000 will meet for the 109th Indianapolis 500 race, the closed window sale, which also means that a power outage of the event will be lifted on local television for the first time since 2016.
Surprisingly, it is reported that the speedway will be the second largest city in Indiana on Sunday, given the influx!
In terms of predictions, I think it is clear that the recruit poleman Robert Shwartzman and his Recruue Prema team will find it difficult to stay in mind after having done so little race in practice and with what Indycar ranks like the worst team of stands of its Pitstop Performance Award rankings. In some respects, the qualifications have already made the event a success for Prema and Shwartzman and everything else is a bonus.
The aggressiveness of Takuma Sato, the second qualification, can be a blessing and a curse, so I think that the second finalist of Pato O’Ward – from his best place of Indy 500 qualification so far in third – is the car to beat from those of the front row.
But choosing winners in the positions that most often win this race is not what you have come here. So we decided to go beyond the starting grid and practice times to give you pilots who should not and should probably not be at the top of your choice list, but which may well cause a shock on Sunday.
19th Kyle Larson
Two accidents before the start of the 500 and starting 14 places worse than last year, the guest of the Superstar Nascar of McLaren, Kyle Larson, hardly seems a wise choice for the victory of the race.
However, I am convinced that the second crash – the first was last month in the open test – was not entirely of his fault and his bad qualification position is partly at least to conservative configuration choices hindering his race of his draw.
What you may not have seen is how Larson has controlled the hybrid and simply continues to impress with its innate capacity and its car control.
He was satisfied with his racing car during recent training sessions and he has the knowledge of last year’s race to leave, experimenting more and more with the tools nuanced in the cockpit he was too afraid to play last year.
Winning is certainly a huge long shot, especially when he has two solid teammates in advance in O’Ward and Christian Lundgaard. But foreign things have happened and it seemed to be a good chance to explain how good it was this month even if the results do not show it.
It seems more and more likely that it will be the last Indy 500 of Larson for a while, so if you are a fan of him or “the double” where a pilot makes the Indy 500 race and Charlotte Nascar on the same day, take advantage!
23rd Kyle Kirkwood
It is difficult to say that Kyle Kirkwood is an outsider, but from the 23rd, he has mass to be in the running to win a first 500 victory.
In practice, he was always the fastest car and driver in time dogs without towing, and as qualifications are done on a clear track, it meant that he had to be the favorite for qualifications.
But there has been a sudden loss of mysterious rhythm, of course, changing the track conditions in terms of wind and temperature, and it seems that he and his Andretti team still do not know what has happened to provoke such a drop.
However, Kirkwood is satisfied with his racing car – just like teammate Marcus Ericsson from ninth – and the team was very strong in Indy races for years now. Kirkwood had several pit problems and training last year, but has always marked the top 10.
If we get the cutting-edge car he had this month, it will certainly be difficult for the victory.
11th Conor Daly
Conor Daly is from Indiana and a favorite of the house, and begins 11th, which is his best equal start in the race.
But above all, he says that his car this year is better than the one where he led the most tricks in 2021 for Ed Carpenter, before a wheel broke him in the Aeroscreen …
Now he is in Juncos Hollinger, who obtained his best qualification result, and who better than withdrawing a giantkilling than the team that made Fernando Alonso from Indy 500 2019 fall?
15th Santino Ferrucci
What a month of roller coaster is for Santino Ferrucci. After two years to be one of the cars to beat or at least one in the running for the first five, this year was very, very difficult.
While his teammate David Malukas – who begins the seventh – apparently crossed the month, AJ Foyt Racing and Ferrucci launched everything and the sink of the car kitchen in terms of configuration. It was a mess.
But, from the 15th certainly did not exclude him and his car looked better in the practice of carbohydrates. In six starts, its worst finish is the 10th.
32nd Josef Newgarden
Already in 2024, you had the impression that the fans were not as happy with a victory of Josef Newgarden as for the other pilots, but after the Unituator Penske scandal which led to Newgarden and that the power will be put in the back, it wins again would be extremely unpopular with many fans.
But I really think that Newgarden is the favorite to win this race, at least it is my choice.
No one has ever won the race for the 29th or worse, but I think it is a lot in part of the fact that fast cars are very rarely found in the last qualification position in the 500. The Newgarden car was one of the 12 best qualifying cars, and it is rare that the drivers or the teams are wrong if they have put a top 12 because on the two rows of the gate.
I also think that there is an obsession to focus on the fact that it is difficult to pass deep into a pack, while it is only a small part of the way you go to the front. The strategy is crucial and if you have a good stand team – Newgarden’s won the Speedway Pitstop Challenge on Friday – you will invent places this way.
The cars are also withdrawn or crash, and the counter-deputy can be very strong from the start with a heavy fall of the tires, so there are positions available there too.
Callum Ilott went to the back in a McLaren car which was not so large last year, and he had the bar of the Anti-Roll “ Jacker ” ‘bar for the whole race, and he went from the back to the 11th. So you can go from the back to a strong position.
I think Newgarden will be up there around the top 10 halfway.
His car looks like a rocket. Sometimes it was a joke to see him write and spend other cars with ease as if it were a hot wheel “trained” by a three -year -old child with his hand on a carpet.
Newgarden is only an outsider because of his starting place and that he may be withdrawn from the incidents of others.
But if he started in the top 12, he would have been the favorite.
No one has ever won three in a row, or from this far. Can he do it?
