Practice report
IndyCar Indy 500
Indy 500: Karam leads extensive race-trim practice
Sage Karam put Dreyer & Reinbold Racing-Chevrolet at the top of the speed charts, as drivers focused on getting their cars fettled in race trim and went back to raceday turbo boost.
David Malsher-Lopez
Edited: May 21, 2018, 9:17 PM
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The hot and humid three-hour, session, which was briefly interrupted by sprinkles of rain and a shunt for Robert Wickens, was the last chance – other than a 1-hour session on Carb Day (Friday) – for the drivers to practice ahead of the race. They now head off on promotional tours around the country.
Back to the “regular” superspeedway 1.3-bar boost, Karam was the only driver to lap under 40sec, setting an average of 226.461mph, 1.3mph faster than second fastest Tony Kanaan in the AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy. However, the Pennsylvanian admitted that he just happened to catch a great draft and that “anyone in the same position could have set the same lap time.”
A trio of Americans filled the next three places, the Andretti Autosport Hondas of Ryan Hunter-Reay and Alexander Rossi sandwiching Charlie Kimball’s Carlin-Chevy.
The Penske-Chevrolets of Will Power were sixth and seventh quickest and also turned the most laps of the day, 120 and 118 laps respectively. Power and another teammate, Josef Newgarden in particular were working hard practicing passing, and the timing of those passes.
Marco Andretti was eighth for Andretti Autosport, ahead of Dale Coyne Racing’s increasingly impressive rookie Zachary Claman De Melo and the Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda of Scott Dixon.
Indy 500, Day 7 practice
Cla# DriverLapsTimeGapIntervalMph 1 24 
Sage Karam 71 39.7419 226.461 2 14 
Tony Kanaan 66 39.9781 0.2362 0.2362 225.123 3 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay 68 40.0320 0.2901 0.0539 224.820 4 23 Charlie Kimball 79 40.0745 0.3326 0.0425 224.582 5 27 Alexander Rossi 70 40.0878 0.3459 0.0133 224.507 6 12 
Will Power 120 40.0989 0.3570 0.0111 224.445 7 3 Helio Castroneves 118 40.1126 0.3707 0.0137 224.368 8 98 Marco Andretti 56 40.1520 0.4101 0.0394 224.148 9 19 
Zachary Claman De Melo 79 40.1623 0.4204 0.0103 224.091 10 9 
Scott Dixon 101 40.1847 0.4428 0.0224 223.966 11 18 
Sébastien Bourdais 92 40.2235 0.4816 0.0388 223.750 12 25 
Stefan Wilson 115 40.2299 0.4880 0.0064 223.714 13 32 Kyle Kaiser 72 40.2384 0.4965 0.0085 223.667 14 20 Ed Carpenter 100 40.2553 0.5134 0.0169 223.573 15 66 J.R. Hildebrand 93 40.3147 0.5728 0.0594 223.244 16 29 
Carlos Munoz 109 40.3194 0.5775 0.0047 223.218 17 15 Graham Rahal 115 40.3372 0.5953 0.0178 223.119 18 4 Matheus Leist 19 40.3652 0.6233 0.0280 222.964 19 13 Danica Patrick 69 40.3721 0.6302 0.0069 222.926 20 88 Gabby Chaves 51 40.3798 0.6379 0.0077 222.884 21 60 Jack Harvey 93 40.3840 0.6421 0.0042 222.861 22 7 Jay Howard 100 40.3959 0.6540 0.0119 222.795 23 30 
Takuma Sato 74 40.4354 0.6935 0.0395 222.577 24 26 Zach Veach 54 40.4676 0.7257 0.0322 222.400 25 6 Robert Wickens 3 40.4812 0.7393 0.0136 222.325 26 10 
Ed Jones 98 40.4916 0.7497 0.0104 222.268 27 21 Spencer Pigot 81 40.5267 0.7848 0.0351 222.076 28 1 Josef Newgarden 87 40.5438 0.8019 0.0171 221.982 29 59 Max Chilton 45 40.5580 0.8161 0.0142 221.904 30 33 James Davison 45 40.6131 0.8712 0.0551 221.603 31 64 
Oriol Servia 65 40.6174 0.8755 0.0043 221.580 32 17 Conor Daly 60 40.6824 0.9405 0.0650 221.226 33 22 Simon Pagenaud 58 40.7421 1.0002 0.0597 220.902
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