Rain and storms delayed the Indianapolis 500 qualifying today. After five hours waiting, INDYCAR announced that qualifying has been postponed. Consequently, it has also altered tomorrow’s schedule, and the set up of the individual sessions.
The Rain Did Not Go Away
The day started with rain, and ended the same way. With a storm blowing over the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the pre-qualifying practice session was cancelled. Even at the start of the day, speculation over qualifying happening was starting to rise.
The heavy rain soon became a storm, with thunder ringing out and fans being warned of severe weather. Then, qualifying was initially delayed. Soon after, the rain started to clear and the track drying began.
However, that wasn’t to last long. All the hard work was undone with more rain hitting. Fortunately though, this rain spell didn’t last too long, and track drying soon resumed. Luckily, the teams had plenty of time to have fun on their social media accounts.
Indy 500 Qualifying Delayed and Altered
After five hours of waiting, INDYCAR officially announced that the session would not go ahead today. Drying the track takes approximately two hours, and they had to ensure all 33 drivers would get an opportunity to attempt qualifying.
With the track taking longer to dry and daylight limited, the call was made as there was no longer enough time. Consequently, tomorrow sees a packed day as the drivers fight for the coveted NTT P1 Award for the 110th Running of the Indianapolis 500.
Earlier this week, INDYCAR announced a new qualifying format in the wake of there being no ‘bumping’. However, with a reduced format tomorrow, this will no longer occur. Now, we revert back to a three session format.
The day starts with an hour long practice session. Following this comes full field qualifying, setting P13-33. The fastest 12 then advance to the Top 12 to set P7-12. Finally, the fastest six will have one final qualifying attempt as the first two rows are set. In each session, drivers will only get one single qualifying attempt.
Amended Schedule
Because of this, the schedule has also been amended:
15:30 CEST: Practice
18:00 CEST: Full Field Qualifying (P13-33)
22:30 CEST: Top 12 Qualifying. (P7-12)
00:00 CEST: Fast 6 Qualifying. (P1-6)
The Girls Who – Motorsport will have full, live coverage of the qualifying sessions on our Indy 500 Live Blog.