How INDYCAR Drivers Can Win The Month Of May — And Contend For The Indy 500

In Driver’s Eye with James Hinchcliffe, the six-time INDYCAR winner will bring you inside the mind of a racer while breaking down the nuts and bolts of the sport for fans. Spring time in Indianapolis is a beautiful thing. The snow melts, the weather warms, flowers start to bloom. But that has nothing to do with it. What makes spring in Indianapolis so beautiful is the fact we are in the “Month of May” — as we in the sport like to call it. When the calendar flips over to May 1, something in the air changes in Indy. It’s tough to explain but undeniably felt by everyone who resides there. Smells are stronger, colors are brighter and there is an energy in the air that is palpable. For INDYCAR teams and drivers, it’s the most important month of the year. The Indianapolis 500 is the biggest motorsports event on the calendar. In fact, it’s the largest single-day sporting event in the world. There is no non-religious gathering of human beings on Earth bigger than the Indy 500. To be fair, some would argue that the Indy 500 is their religion. So, how do drivers and their teams excel at Indianapolis Motor Speedway throughout the month and the biggest race of the year? 2 KEYS TO SUCCESS FOR THE INDY 500 To be successful in the Month of May and at the Indy 500, there are two things that every team has to focus on more than anything. The first is the three P’s: preparation, preparation and preparation. So much of your fate at the Indy 500 — and the crucial qualifying events leading up to it — is decided before the cars ever come off the trailer. The offseason work back at the shop on engineering and pit stop practice, the hours dedicated to building the cars, the countless runs in the simulator — all these things add up and set the tone for how your Month of May could go. It’s the difference between confidence and speed versus being miserable and frustrated for a whole month. The second thing is, quite simply, execution. There are so many things you have to do absolutely perfectly as a team over the month, and slip-ups can be costly. Throughout 500 miles on the iconic 2.5-mile track, uncontrollables are abundant and can negatively affect your race, so nailing each element you can control is vital to success. Especially when you need a little luck, too. Let’s break down how INDYCAR drivers and teams attack the month leading up to the Indy 500, set this year for Sunday, May 24 (12:30 p.m. ET on FOX). WEEK 1: INDY 500 TESTING The first week of the month is all about what we call the Indy 500 Open Test. The Month of May kicked off with the two-day test, which, ironically, was in the last week of April this year. Teams hit the speedway for the first time this season and dusted the cobwebs off before they come back in anger later this month for opening day of official Indy 500 activities. It’s usually to confirm and ensure all the systems on the car are working correctly, so time isn’t wasted when official practice begins. This is also a great opportunity for the one-off entries — cars that aren’t full-time INDYCAR competitors — to get the team all together at a race track for the first time in a year, if not ever. There are only so many meetings and practice pit stops you can do at the shop before you need to go do it for real. [INDY TESTING: Mick Schumacher’s First Time Driving Indy Oval] WEEK 2: INDY ROAD COURSE RACE After the Indy 500 Open Test, the second week shifts to the Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, which lives inside the famed 2.5-mile oval. This year, it’s on Saturday, May 9. Racing on any configuration at IMS is a rush, but when the biggest race in the world is just around the corner, sometimes the grand prix can feel like the annoying little brother to the 500. But it’s not something you can overlook, as it pays just as many points as any other race. It can also give your team momentum heading into the rest of the month. Just ask Will Power, Simon Pagenaud or Alex Palou — all of whom took the confidence from winning the Indy Grand Prix into a 500 victory a few weeks later. But more on that next week… WEEK 3: QUALIFYING AND A LOT OF LAPS Once the Indy road course race is done and dusted, the series makes the teams take a mandatory day off. The garages are closed and all the engineers, mechanics, officials, volunteers and drivers get one last day to rest and recharge before the marathon run-up to Memorial Day Weekend and the Indy 500. Then, the teams get a day with no on-track action to switch the cars over from road course configuration to oval configuration. This is when Week 3 really begins, and it’s all about laps. Practice week has four days with six total hours of practice. That is a ton of track time, but it’s because there’s a ton of work to get done. Teams will prioritize evaluating any updates or changes they developed over the offseason and then start heading down a path on setup. The early days of the week are focused on the setup for the Indy 500 specifically. Drivers will spend a lot of time running in traffic and getting the car comfortable in race trim. Logging as many miles as you can is crucial. On Friday, the horsepower gets turned up to qualifying levels — it’s all speed, speed, speed — and focus shifts to the four-lap qualifying runs that will determine the starting grid and the coveted pole position. Saturday and Sunday are all about going fast and finding out where you will start in The Greatest Spectacle In Racing. The last six Indy 500 pole winners’ qualifying speeds were at least 231 miles an hour. There is no greater thrill — and no more nerve-wracking challenge — for an INDYCAR driver than a flat-out qualifying run at IMS. WEEK 4: THE GREATEST SPECTACLE IN RACING Once you’ve survived qualifying weekend and your heart rate comes down, Week 4 is all about strategizing your 500 miles. How you approach this final week and the two last practice sessions — one on Monday and one on Friday, which is affectionately known as Carb Day — totally depends on how the previous weekend went. If you qualify well, you work on dialing in the car to run up front and contend for the win on pure pace. Starting near the back? Well, then you’ve got to throw as much at the car as you can to make sure that you can weave through traffic. Because if you have to pass 30-plus cars, that means you will spend a lot of your day in traffic! After that, all that remains are 800 left turns between you and becoming racing royalty! Easy, right?! [INDY 500: Everything To Know For Busy Month of May in Indianapolis] SOUND LIKE AN INDYCAR EXPERT Having just watched the Open Test, I am so excited about this year’s Indy 500. And I’ve already got my eye on one team in particular: Arrow McLaren. Zak Brown’s team is running four cars — three full-season drivers in Pato O’Ward, Christian Lundgaard and Nolan Siegel, plus a one-off entry for 2014 Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay — and each has a very different story heading in. Starting with Lundgaard, you’ve got a driver in his second year with the team, and he’s coming off a seventh-place finish in 2025 — his best in four Indy 500s. He’s got two podiums on the season but has never finished an oval race in the top three. With a year of experience with this squad, he should be brimming with confidence. Plus, he has the benefit of learning off of an Indy expert in… Ryan Hunter-Reay. RHR joining this team is, by far, the most exciting combo of the one-off entries. A previous race winner for Andretti, he nearly took the W last year in a back-up car for a team that only competes in one race — the 500 — each year. Put him in a program with the resources of McLaren, and watch out. Nolan Siegel, who is the focus of the most recent episode of FOX Sports’ docuseries “All In,” has a lot to prove to team boss Tony Kanaan this season, and the year hasn’t started out great. But a strong Indy 500 performance can save a driver’s season. And career. Finally, you’ve got the series’ most popular driver in Pato O’Ward. Pato’s track record at Indy is exemplary: four top-5 finishes in his last five starts. The outlier was a crash with a handful of laps to go while, you guessed it, running in the top 5. Only Alexander Rossi, another one to watch, has been as consistently competitive over the last decade as Pato, who is fueled by the recent memories of bitter defeat. Indy owes nothing to any of the 33 drivers lucky enough to take part in the 500. But if there is one driver you feel is deserving of a career- and life-changing checkered flag, it’s Pato. But deserving doesn’t make you one to watch. The way he was driving and the way his car was handling at the Open Test, however, is more than enough to put him right at the top of the list of favorites heading into the 110th running of this amazing race. MORE DRIVER’S EYE: