Scott Dixon’s lap at 226.971 m.p.h. in the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing machine was enough to claim the top spot on the charts in today’s Indianapolis 500 practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Dixon turned the fast lap on the 18th of the 68 laps he logged on the 2.5-mile oval.
Dixon was followed by Ryan Briscoe of Team Penske, who peeled off a lap at 226.633 m.p.h. in the No. 6 entry. The final man to crack the 226 range on Wednesday was Alex Tagliani (226.002), who is managing to have solid practice runs despite fighting the remnants of a case of bronchitis.
“There’s not much I can say about the car other than it’s very comfortable out there,” Tagliani said with a bit of hoarseness due to a sore throat. “We tried a couple of aero configurations today. We’re good behind people [in the draft], and good on my own.”
The Canadian driver also talked about his recent illnesses, saying that while he’s been feeling better, they’ve also been “wearing [him] down.” But it seems that it’s nothing that being in his No. 77 FAZZT Race Team special can’t fix.
“That’s the fun part about racing,” he said. “Pretty much anything that you have, when you’re in the car, you don’t feel anything.”
Hideki Mutoh may be joining Tagliani on the list of darkhorses for the “Fast Nine” pole shootout on Saturday. He was able to go fourth-quickest on Wednesday with a lap of 225.926 m.p.h. in the No. 06 Newman/Haas car.
The top five was rounded out by TCGR’s Dario Franchitti’s lap at 225.85 m.p.h. IZOD IndyCar Series points leader Will Power, Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves were also able to get past the 225 range.
Kanaan and teammate Marco Andretti put in a major amount of work on Wednesday, with Kanaan logging 134 laps and Andretti running 119. In all, a total of 2,282 laps were run today at the Speedway.
