Rain Postpones Indy 500 Qualifying To Sunday

Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Speedway, Ind.) — Qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 was wiped out Saturday because of rain. Heavy rains drenched the flat 2.5-mile oval throughout Saturday with the massive 2.5-mile oval never being dry enough to qualify all 33 cars. FOX Weather predicts temperatures in the 80s and a 25 percent chance of rain Sunday. All 33 drivers needed to post a time Saturday for the opening round of qualifying to be complete. Each qualifying run is four laps, so it would take about three hours — if there are no accidents — to complete an entire round. Once it became clear track officials would not be able to dry the track and get in the entire round, they called it a day. INDYCAR will now do three sessions of qualifying Sunday. The first session will start at noon ET on FS2 and consist of each driver getting one chance to do a four-lap qualifying run. That will set positions 13-33. FOX coverage will begin at 4 p.m. ET and the top 12 will each do another four-lap run, with the slowest among those going first at 4:30 p.m. The six slowest from the top 12 runs will start seventh-12 and the top six will advance to a Fast Six round that will begin at 6 p.m. ET. That final round will set the pole and first two rows. Typically, if weather was not an issue, drivers would post a qualifying time and if it was slower than what would advance them to the rounds for the fastest drivers, they would go out again after every driver has the opportunity to qualify once. That won’t be an option this weekend, putting the pressure on them to post a time quick enough to make the next round or at least start near the front. Drivers will focus on their jobs and not as much as how the cars might need to be adjusted. Temperatures on Sunday are expected in the 80s, potentially 20 degrees higher than Saturday. “As drivers, … we just need to focus on driving and making sure we do our stuff right,” said defending race winner and four-time INDYCAR champion Alex Palou, who drives for INDYCAR staple Chip Ganassi Racing. “We have an amazing group of mechanics and engineers that will get it right [depending] on conditions.” Once they do get to qualifying, here is the qualifying order: 1. Scott Dixon 2. Christian Lundgaard 3. Ryan Hunger-Reay 4. Ed Carpenter 5. Rinus VeeKay 6. Scott McLaughlin 7. Nolan Siegel 8. Graham Rahal 9. Josef Newgarden 10. Will Power 11. Felix Rosenqvist 12. Santino Ferrucci 13. Marcus Ericsson 14. Conor Daly 15. Mick Schumacher 16. Romain Grosjean 17. Marcus Armstrong 18. Pato O’Ward 19. David Malukas 20. Alexander Rossi 21. Dennis Hauger 22. Sting Ray Robb 23. Kyle Kirkwood 24. Caio Collet 25. Helio Castroneves 26. Takuma Sato 27. Christian Rasmussen 28. Louis Foster 29. Kyffin Simpson 30. Jack Harvey 31. Alex Palou 32. Jacob Abel 33. Katherine Legge