Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Speedway, Ind.) — Qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 has been delayed because of rain.
Heavy rains drenched the flat 2.5-mile oval Saturday morning, where qualifying was scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. ET.
FOX Weather predicts the rain to end in early afternoon and when it ends will determine whether cars will get on track to reach speeds of possibly 240 mph.
All 33 drivers need to post a time Saturday for the opening round of qualifying to be complete. If all 33 drivers do not get to post a qualifying lap, INDYCAR is expected to invalidate all times and start all over Sunday.
Each qualifying run is four laps, so it would take about three hours — if there are no accidents — to complete an entire round.
With it taking more than two hours to dry the track and typically track officials not wanting to go much beyond 8 p.m. (that gives an hour of daylight that makes it a little easier for the massive crowd to leave). That would require rain to end by around 2 p.m. to have drivers on track Saturday.
INDYCAR officials are not expected to try to start qualifying if rain appears imminent for two reasons: They wouldn’t want a driver to make a qualifying run with it most likely being invalidated because not all the cars make an attempt and the conditions would be different if they were to resume after a storm.
If Saturday does get washed out, it is still to be determined how INDYCAR would handle qualifying Sunday, which was set aside to determine the starting order for the top 15 cars from Saturday.
INDYCAR could do all four sessions — the first session of all 33 cars that sets spots 16-33, the session for those 10-15 to determine the final three spots for the next session, that is the top 12, and then the final session of the Fast Six for the pole that sets the 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 might not 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
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