It was a kind of repressed opening day and slowed down by the dust at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for Kyle Larson, champion of the NASCAR NASCAR series and the most recent winner of the series during his first official laps on Tuesday in the opening training for the 2025 Indianapolis 500.
After waiting for a light but persistent morning rain, the 34 cars in the running for the 33-cars grid during the famous May 25 race took the 2.5-mile speedway to shake their cars and see where they are starting to prepare for the qualification of this weekend and the race next weekend.
The 32-year-old Californian Larson joins an elite group with five drivers to participate in the big day of the Memorial Day in Racing-Racing in Indianapolis 500 in the afternoon and Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte Motor Speedway the same evening. Last year, Larson finished 18th in an Indy 500 late rain only to arrive in Charlotte and never had the chance to run her stock because the 600 was called early due to the bad weather.
Plus: the Larson calendar for May
A Lightning alert finally stopped the four-hour session scheduled for Tuesday in Indianapolis about half an hour earlier, but the 34 cars entered the race on the day.
Larson ran 45 laps in total in n ° 17 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet – his best tour of 221.207 MPH was the fastest 24th on the ground. He spent the end of the session running in traffic and said that he had mainly used the day to cool off with the car.
“I was fairer trying to hit my marks today than worrying about adjusting things (in the cockpit), but it was a good day,” said Larson at the end of training.
Last year, Larson made his Indy debut by qualifying a fifth best best on the hendrickcars.com Chevrolet Indycar – the sponsorship from the Nascar Hendrick Motorsports team for which he leads the Chevrolet n ° 5 full -time.
With a victory on Sunday at Kansas Speedway, the champion of the Nascar Cup 2021 series is currently carrying out the 35-point series on the Hendrick teammate, William Byron, with three victories and nine top-10 in the first 12 races.
It is certainly a trusted manufacturer before its prosecution to cover the 1100 combined miles of Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600.
“Our day was good, he took the start of the clean air a little and made sure that our balance was comfortable – what it was – so I was satisfied,” said Larson. “There, in the end, finally had a little traffic and, as usual, an understeer. Happy with the first day, beautiful smooth day. Good place to start. “
Five cars exceeded the bar of 225 mi / h on Tuesday led by Will Power, winner of the Indy 500, which turned a turn of 227.026 Mi / h in team No. 12 Penske Chevrolet – The only car to overshadow 227 MPH. Power’s Power’s teammate Josef Newgarden was the second faster (226.971 MPH) in pursuit to become the first driver in the history of the vegetable race to win three consecutive Indy 500s.
The champion of the NTT Indycar series three times and in title, Alex Palou, finished third with a round of 226.672 MPH in the Honda n ° 10 of Chip Ganassi Racing n ° 10.
Larson conceded that it would be a two-week loaded week, balancing the indy 500 qualifications this weekend with the competition in the Nascar stars race in North Wilkesboro, in North Carolina, Sunday evening. Chevrolet’s comrade, champion of the Nascar Xfinity series, Justin Allgaier, will help qualify the Larson stars car on Friday due to temporal conflicts this weekend, Hendrick Motorsports confirmed on Tuesday.
Larson said he felt very lucky for the opportunity to compete in Indianapolis and Charlotte and that his first day in Indianapolis was very comfortable.
“It doesn’t seem different, it’s just practice, not a huge matter,” said Larson. “Last year was also the practice, you have a lot of time to make tricks.
And he added: “Focus on Indy now. Before leaving Kansas (Nascar Crew Chief) Cliff (Daniels) and I spoke that perhaps if there was time on Saturday, we could bring together and talk about how their practice went and do things and prepare for the race on Sunday. That’s good, we are so well organized there.”
The practice continues every day this week, Wednesday scheduled from noon to 6 p.m. he. The first session from noon to 4 p.m. will be televised on FS2, then the last two hours from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. HE on FS1.