Montoya’s Chevy-powered teammate, 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series champion Will Power, and Honda’s Ryan Hunter-Reay, the 2014 Indy 500 victor, engaged in a friendly sparring session after Wednesday’s running was done – one where Hunter-Reay posted the fastest lap of the day at 228.202mph and Power was third at 227.733mph. Hopefully we can get back out in the next day or two. The second is short for kilopascals, the unit of measurement used to gauge turbocharger pressure on the Verizon IndyCar Series machines.
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Will Power and Josef Newgarden finally got Chevrolet to the top of the speed chart Friday. Andretti Autosport teammate Carlos Munoz, of Colombia, was second at 228.066.Coming off the year we had here last year when we couldnt get the vehicle to do anything we wanted it too, its nice to be back on top, Hunter-Reay said.
Honda drivers have been atop the leaderboard all three days of practice (Tuesday’s session was rained out). On Wednesday, Hunter-Reay led an Andretti 1-2, and despite the appearance of an advantage, he pushed back on Power’s suggestion that Honda holds the high ground.
The Dale Coyne Racing drivers time of 39.4804s was enough to see him end the day at the top of the time sheets, which, despite it meaning very little, made Chaves extremely happy, and proved that the team have good pace this month of May.
“My first experience with racing was with Hot Wheels cars, I remember zipping cars down the orange track, and now I watch my two sons do the same”, said RHR, who drives for Andretti Autosport.
The Rahal Letterman Lanigan rookie benefited fully from the new domed skids that have been added to cars this year to catch the air in the event a vehicle is generating lift during a crash.
“The vehicle feels great; it’s really good for sure”, Munoz said. Tomorrow we have another big day ahead of us we need to work on.
“We had about 30 minutes of running on Monday, so today was our first full day and we got through a lot of changes, got through all our program, did some traffic running and, like I say, I’m pretty pleased”, said Chaves, the 2015 Sunoco Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year who joined the Coyne team just prior to the May 14 Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis on the IMS road course.
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Practice continues from noon-6 p.m. (ET) Thursday and Friday. NAPA will also appear as an associate sponsor on the team’s other four cars.
