The appointment with the 106th Indianapolis 500 officially opened with the first free practice on Tuesday in the US, which ended with the best time of the former Formula 1 driver Takuma Sato. The Japanese, however, twice winner of the famous race on the historic Indiana oval, took advantage of the last five minutes of practice at the wheel of his Honda Dale Coyne number 51 to outclass all the other 32 participants in the event, finishing in the lead in front of Scott Dixon more than 1 mile per hour more average speed than the New Zealander.
The 45-year-old Japanese rider thus got his revenge on the Chip Ganassi driver, who had finished the morning with the best time of 00: 39.6268. In the afternoon, however, Sato stopped the clock on 00: 39.3118commenting on his performance after the session: “We had a great trail – he has declared – in Happy Hour, if you have new tires, I think you can. So, I’m pretty happy today. To be honest, this morning was not as smooth as we would have liked. We had to go back to the garage and check a lot of things because there was something we were not happy with. But in the end, in the afternoon, we reached a good speed quickly. I am very happy with Dale Coyne Racing, who did a good job ”.
To underline the performance of the rookie Jimmie Johnson, seven times NASCAR champion on his 500 Miglia debut. The American, also engaged with the Chip Ganassi team in car number 48, in fact reached the third position in the afternoon, commented by one of the rookie in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing”: “We have a great car– he has declared – for me it’s just about working on extremes. What is a low trim? What is a high trim? I’m just trying to understand some of these general aspects. Overall it’s a really good day. I believe that the result obtained in this session gives me a lot of confidence for the future ”. Also good Marcus Ericssonauthor of fourth time ahead of the winner of the last edition Alex Palou, 6° at the end of the day. Both sessions saw all 33 cars that will participate in the 500 Miglia at work, without interruptions and without accidents. As for the next appointments, free practice will resume today with the third of the five total sessions scheduled before Saturday’s qualifying. For the real 500 Miglia there will be a wait on Sunday 29 May.
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