Qualifying is now under way at Indy 500! Follow all of the activity during Pole Day for the 2011 Indy 500 on SPEED.com with regular trackside updates.
Follow all of the activity during Pole Day for the 2011 Indy 500 on SPEED.com with regular trackside updates.:
8:00 a.m. ET: James Hinchcliffe is out immediately, posting a 225.719 on his own.
8:15 a.m. ET: Ryan Briscoe spins and crashes in Turn 2. The crash looks odd--spun approaching the apex. Hard rearward hit.
Briscoe looks very wobbly. Sits on his sidepod initially, then on the ground. Attempts to stand, but site back down immediately. The genial Aussie looks dazed.
He's taken away on a stretcher in the ambulance.
8:20 a.m ET: Scott Speed's manager texts to say the young American will be out at 8:30 a.n. to begin searching for more speed.
8:30 a.m. ET: Alex Tagliani jumps to the top of the charts with a 228.184, set with the help of a tow.
8:47 a.m. ET: Ryan Briscoe is reported as checked and released to drive from the infield care center.
Simona De Silvestro rolls out in her backup car to turn the first laps since her crash on Thursday.
8:47 a.m. ET: Scott Speed is happier with the car this morning. His manager reports the oversteer that plagued the Dragon Racing car throughout the week is heavily reduced. He's P35 at a 221.739 after 10 laps.
9:15 a.m. ET: Scott Speed up to 222.803.
9:20 a.m. ET: Andretti Autosport cars, as a whole, are still struggling to find speed. At present, only Danica Patrick (P14) and Ryan Hunter-Reay (P28) are comfortable enough to make the show. John Andretti (P34), Marco Andretti (P35) and Mike Conway (P37) are hurting.
9:37 a.m. ET: Ryan Briscoe in his car and ready to head out after his scary crash just over an hour ago.
23 laps so far for Simona De Silvestro in her old and heavy backup car. Best lap so far of 223.357 for P37.
9:45 a.m. ET: 223.698 for Briscoe in the No. 6T.
10:00 a.m. ET: End of the final pre-qualifying practice session. The run for the pole begins at 11 a.m. ET.
Rank, Driver, Time Difference to Leader, Best Lap Speed
1 Alex Tagliani 0.000 228.184
2 Buddy Rice 0.0580 227.849
3 Will Power 0.0730 227.766
4 Scott Dixon 0.0940 227.642
5 Helio Castroneves 0.1370 227.396
6 Dario Franchitti 0.1390 227.386
7 Townsend Bell 0.1590 227.271
8 Vitor Meira 0.1800 227.150
9 JR Hildebrand 0.2210 226.912
10 Bertrand Baguette 0.2290 226.868
11 Ed Carpenter 0.2450 226.778
12 Dan Wheldon 0.2720 226.624
13 Oriol Servia 0.2990 226.466
14 Danica Patrick 0.3030 226.446
15 Ho-Pin Tung 0.3040 226.440
16 Ana Beatriz 0.3110 226.401
17 EJ Viso 0.3780 226.017
18 Paul Tracy 0.3890 225.959
19 Takuma Sato 0.4010 225.891
20 Davey Hamilton 0.4280 225.738
21 James Hinchcliffe 0.4310 225.719
22 Jay Howard 0.4380 225.676
23 Graham Rahal 0.4450 225.641
24 Tony Kanaan 0.4880 225.394
25 Ryan Briscoe 0.5400 225.101
26 Justin Wilson 0.5430 225.086
27 Tomas Scheckter 0.5730 224.916
28 Charlie Kimball 0.5750 224.903
29 Ryan Hunter-Reay 0.5760 224.899
30 Alex Lloyd 0.6400 224.540
31 Bruno Junqueira 0.6520 224.472
32 Sebastian Saavedra 0.6730 224.358
33 Pippa Mann 0.6810 224.310
34 Marco Andretti 0.6970 224.220
35 John Andretti 0.7260 224.060
36 T Ryan Briscoe 0.7489 223.932
37 James Jakes 0.8364 223.446
38 Raphael Matos 0.8480 223.382
39 T Simona de Silvestro 0.8520 223.357
40 Mike Conway 0.8860 223.172
41 Scott Speed 0.9526 222.803
11:00 a.m. ET: Sebastian Saavedra is rolling for his qualifying attempt. Wind will be a factor in the early going today.
11:05 a.m. ET:221.526 average for Saavedra. Not good. Charlie Kimball is now on the move to qualify.
11:10 a.m. ET:Charlie Kimball sets a four-lap average of 224.262. 2005 Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon is now on track for his attempt.
11:15 a.m. ET: 226.300 for Dan Wheldon. The Briton was consistently fast. Alex Tagliani is now warming up for his run at the top spot.
11:19 a.m. ET: 226.936 on Tag's first lap. 227.135 on Lap 2. 226.882 on Lap 3 and 226.861 on Lap 4 leaves the French-Canadian fastest with an average of 226.954.
11:20 a.m. ET: James Jakes is warming up.
11:24 a.m. ET: James Jakes sets an average of 221.846.
11:28 a.m. ET: Bertrand Baguette is fast so far. 225.285 average for the Belgian Indy 500 sophomore. James Hinchcliffe is now on track.
11:29 a.m. ET: Hinchcliffe with the second-fastest warmup lap so far--223.061.
11:32 a.m. ET: 225.572 for Hinchcliffe, making the Canadian the fastest rookie runner so far. Graham Rahal is now on track.
11:36 a.m. ET: 223.822 average for Graham Rahal, slower than his teammate Charlie Kimball. Rahal won't be pleased. JR Hildebrand is out for his qualifying run now.
11:41 a.m. ET: Move over James Hinchcliffe, there's a new fastest rookie in the field. JR Hildebrand edges the Canadian by .007 with a four-lap average of 225.579. Ho-Pin Tung now warming up.
11:44 a.m. ET: Big crash for Tung as he spins at the apex of Turn 1 on his fourth lap of qualifying. Flags are beginning to stand at attention as wind continues to build. A likely contributor to Tung's accident. He'd averaged 224.340 up to that point. The car is not likely repairable to run again today and they do not have a spare listed. The Dutch/Chinese driver got out of the car on his own and appears to be uninjured.
11:55 a.m. ET: Tung is is awake and alert, but has been taken to Methodist Hospital. The team's earlier communique of Tung being OK has been updated.
11:59 a.m. ET: Will Power on track. The wind has lessened, slightly.
12:03 p.m. ET: Power runs an average of 226.089 to take third at the moment.
12:03 p.m. ET: Davey Hamilton warming up.
12:07 p.m. ET: 225.250 average for Davey Hamilton. Impressive--a big improvement from practice.
12:08 p.m. ET: Pippa Mann on track to qualify.
12:12 p.m. ET: Pippa Mann sets an average of 223.070. Paul Tracy is warming up.
12:17 p.m. ET: Paul Tracy qualifies with a four-lap average of 224.353. Tomas Scheckter is now on track. Graham Rahal in the media center saying he's convinced his lack of speed in qualifying is due to a down-on-power engine.
12:20 p.m. ET: Scheckter rocket-fast on his warmup lap at 224.507, but is slowing down on each lap...
12:21 p.m. ET: 224.117 average for Tomas Scheckter. Jay Howard is now on track
Qualifying results, so far:
Rank Car Driver Diff. Warmup Lap 1 Lap 2 Lap 3 Lap 4 AVG
1 Alex Tagliani 0.000. 219.102 226.936 227.135 226.882 226.861 226.954
2 Dan Wheldon 0.1160. 224.053 226.473 226.379 226.324 226.025 226.300
3 Will Power 0.1710. 218.484 226.162 226.101 226.043 226.051 226.089
4 JR Hildebrand 0.2570. 222.608 225.674 225.549 225.433 225.659 225.579
5 James Hinchcliffe 0.2480. 223.061 225.721 225.558 225.565 225.445 225.572
6 Bertrand Baguette 0.2600. 221.543 225.656 225.556 225.009 224.923 225.285
7 Davey Hamilton 0.3160. 221.203 225.336 225.321 225.192 225.152 225.250
8 Paul Tracy 0.4660. 219.329 224.497 224.174 224.447 224.293 224.353
9 Charlie Kimball 0.4550. 217.727 224.144 224.093 224.558 224.253 224.262
10 Tomas Scheckter 0.4870. 224.507 224.378 224.125 224.015 223.949 224.117
11 Graham Rahal 0.5280. 222.573 224.150 223.877 223.579 223.683 223.822
12 Pippa Mann 0.6060. 217.533 223.712 223.459 222.535 222.577 223.070
13 James Jakes 0.9010. 214.070 221.445 221.921 222.086 221.932 221.846
14 Sebastian Saavedra 0.9230. 222.203 221.965 221.803 221.372 220.968 221.526
16 Ho-Pin Tung 0.4770. 217.240 224.433 224.385 224.203 224.340
12:25 p.m. ET: 224.483 average for Howard, who struggled to find speed in practice. Ryan Briscoe is out in his backup car to made a qualifying run.
12:30 p.m. ET: Ryan Briscoe sets a four-lap average of 223.435. He will likely need to find more speed to comfortably qualify for the race. Marco Andretti is up next to qualify.
12:33 p.m. ET: Marco Andretti sets an average of 223.389, just ahead of rookie driver Pippa Mann. Buddy Rice is now on track.
12:38 p.m. ET: Buddy Rice qualifies fourth with an average of 225.426. Bruno Junqueira is warming up for his run.
12:43 p.m. ET: Bruno Junqueira sets a four-lap average of 224.236. Ryan Hunter-Reay is now warming up.
12:48 p.m. ET: Ryan Hunter-Reay's qualifying speed of 222.951 is only faster than Sebastian Saavedra and James Jakes. Ouch. Rafa Matos is now qualifying.
12:50 p.m. ET: Rafa's car is leaping out from the apex. He's doing all he can to keep it off the wall. Scary run so far.
12:51 p.m. ET: A 'balls of steel' run for Rafa Matos to an average of 222.786. A lot of risk for so little speed. E.J. Viso is now on track.
12:55 p.m. ET: E.J. Viso qualifies ninth at 224.732. Townsend Bell is up next to qualify.
12:59 p.m. ET: Townsend Bell runs to third with an average of 226.277. We currently have an all-Sam Schmidt Motorsports* front row (*Wheldon's team is engaged in a technical partnership with SSM). Vitor Meira is now on track.
1:04 p.m. ET: Vitor Meira sets a four-lap average of 225.590 to run sixth. Justin Wilson is now on track.
1:08 p.m. ET: Justin Wilson qualifies 12th at 224.511. Mike Conway is up next.
http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/indycar-andretti-team-searching-for-speed/Ryan Hunter-Reay says: "I'm not sure where the speed is [missing from his car]. We're pretty trimmed out." The Andretti team continues to suffer for speed.
1:12 p.m. ET: Mike Conway sets the slowest speed in qualifying at 222.247. Helio Castroneves is on track for what should be an exciting run.
1:16 p.m. ET: Not exciting enough, as Helio Castroneves sets a 225.216 average, good enough for only 11th-place so far. What a strange day so far. Takuma Sato is up next.
1:19 p.m. ET: Big wiggles for Sato on his warmup laps. Scary stuff.
1:21 p.m. ET: Takuma Sato sets a very impressive 225.736 average to go sixth fastest. Scott Dixon is on track to set the first serious Ganassi run at the fastest speed of the session.
1:26 p.m. ET: Scott Dixon takes the center of the front row with an average of 226.701, setting his fastest lap of 226.9 on his final tour. John Andretti is now on track.
1:31 p.m. ET: John Andretti sets an average of 223.393, which places him 24th. Oriol Servia is next to qualify.
1:36 p.m. ET: Oriol Servia continues his form by running to sixth with an average of 225.775. Ana Beatriz is no preparing to qualify.
1:40 p.m. ET: Ana Beatriz qualifies 20th at 224.258. Tony Kanaan is now warming up. He's been uncharacteristically quiet this month.
1:45 p.m. ET: Tony Kanaan qualifies 18th with a 224.417. Not great, but better than what he experienced last year. Danica Patrick is warming up to qualify.
1:48 p.m. ET: Danica Patrick is the fastest Andretti Autosport car in P23 with a 223.837 average. Dario Franchitti is out now on his run.
1:52 p.m. ET: Franchitti is coming within millimeters of the walls on corner exit.
1:53 p.m. ET: Dario Franchitti goes to third--just behind his teammate, Scott Dixon--with an average of 226.379. Alex Lloyd is next.
1:57 p.m. ET: Alex Lloyd runs to P24--the bubble for cars qualifying on Saturday--with an average of 223.759.
1:59 p.m. ET: Light misting being reported as Simona De Silvestro sits in the box waiting to roll out to make a qualifying attempt. Skies getting a little bit darker, Rain is expected soon.
2:03 p.m. ET: De Silvestro is on track.
2:07 p.m. ET: Simona De Silvestro runs to P24 with an average of 223.681 in her backup car. Ed Carpenter is now warming up for his run.
2:11 p.m. ET: Ed Carpenter qualifies sixth with an average of 226.171. A monster first lap for Carpenter at 226.4 had him projected for P3, but a big lift on Lap 2 dropped his speed to 225.8 and he failed to recover. Ryan Briscoe is back out for his second qualifying attempt.
