Immediately after everyone set their first run times, Team Penske-Chevrolet’s Josef Newgarden headed out to make a second run, and while marginally improving his average speed over the four-lap run, he didn’t improve his 20^th place.

By contrast, another Chevy runner, Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay vaulted from 12^th to fifth, gaining over 0.6mph on his and only a moment on his fourth lap prevented him from claiming second.

Read Also:

Marco Andretti made a similar improvement in the #98 Andretti Autosport-Honda to edge away from the danger zone of relegation to the Last Chance Qualifiers, moving up from 28^th to 24^th.

Meyer Shank Racing’s Jack Harvey, who hadn’t set a representative time on his first run due to a bizarre apparent construction problem with his right-rear tire, had no problem in setting 20^th fastest speed of the day at that time to move comfortably into the race.

Stefan Wilson in the sixth Andretti Autosport-Honda failed to improve on his 25^th – which had now become 26^th due to Harvey’s improvement, while the Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Hondas of both Takuma Sato and Santino Ferrucci started second runs but were waved off as their early laps showed no sign of improving their 13^th and 23^rd grid slots respectively.

Then came Alex Palou’s heavy shunt in the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda.

Palou told NBC: “It’s just a bit frustrating. Chip Ganassi Racing gave me the fastest car today and during the week. It was me pushing to be faster. I lost the rear on entry. Things happen when you try to go fast and take everything to the limit. We will try to fix it for tomorrow.”

Because he had rejoined the track from the slow line, Palou had not needed to forfeit his first-run time. The Ganassi team reported to NBC that the car was salvageable too.

Conor Daly in the third Carpenter car abandoned his run, while Sage Karam’s Dreyer & Reinbold Racing-Chevy completed its run but did not improve.

With temperatures climbing to 86degF ambient/120degF track, no more significant improvements were going to happen before 5pm, but Colton Herta’s Andretti Autosport-Honda – already qualified second fastest – ventured out to carry out research on expected track conditions for the Fast Nine shootout for pole tomorrow. His 230.229mph average was some 1.4mph off his best.

As 5.00pm approached, when there would be just 50mins to go, it got busy down in pitlane with race director Kyle Novak having to decide the order in which the cars would hit the track.

Juan Pablo Montoya went out with revised gearing in his Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet but couldn’t make any improvement.

Ed Jones in the Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan-Honda, made a major improvement to vault from 19^th to 11^th, and next up was Wilson, who again failed to better his time from the first run.

Karam, having fallen outside the top 30 that would be confirmed in the race came from the priority line to make a third run, but team owner Dennis Reinbold wisely called him in after two flying laps as it was clear he wouldn’t improve.

Next up was Felix Rosenqvist who sat 17^th at the time and improved to 14^th, while 2020 polesitter Marco Andretti (25^th) came next and got fractionally better but didn’t move up the grid.

From the fast line, Simona De Silvestro hit the track in the Paretta Autosport-Chevrolet and while her first lap was 230.2mph, her second was only 228.5, her third was 228.3, and her last was 226.55. That dropped her outside the top 30 and consigned her to the Last Chance Qualifier battle tomorrow.

Next up came Team Penske’s Will Power, in the unbelievable position of needing to fight his way into the field. His first three laps were fabulously consistent but ranged only from 229.392 to 229.252mph, but his fourth, a 228.885, dropped him to 31^st.

Both he and De Silvestro refueled and rejoined the priority line, but first they had to watch Top Gun Racing’s RC Enerson run two laps before his run was aborted by IndyCar.

AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet’s Dalton Kellett then went into the priority lane so had his time pulled, and then set a time 1mph considerably slower – thereby giving De Silvestro an easier target for her third run. However, de Silvestro couldn’t make it happen and so Kellett was safe.

However, because Power’s team had gone to the priority line again his previous average – despite being far quicker than Kellett’s eventual average, was now void.

Thus tomorrow afternoon, Power, de Silvestro, Karam, Kimball and Enerson will fight for the last three places on the grid.

Locked-in Indy 500 qualifiers, with Top 9 to run Fast Nine shootout tomorrow