On Fast Friday, the turbo boost went up and the gloves came off. Sebastien Bourdais turned the fast lap of the week with an average speed of 233.116 mph. The running was interrupted by rain and lightning early in the day. 1040 laps were covered by the drivers on Friday.
Fernando Alonso was fouth once again, getting up to 231.827 mph. Between he and Bourdais were Ryan Hunter-Reay and Takuma Sato, both fellow Andretti Autosport teammates with Alonso. Hunter-Reay had a top speed of 232.132 and Sato was at 231.969.
Today’s running concentrated less on race-craft and more on qualifying set-up. With just about 25 minutes left in the day, Alonso went out with his car fully trimmed for qualifying for the first time. I could be wrong, as I have been looking for confirmation on the times, but I think Alonso was third fastest around the speedway without a tow. That’s mighty impressive.
In the afternoon, Spencer Pigot hit the wall and caused a brief stoppage.
With about 15 minutes left, Zach Veach hit the wall as well. Veach almost got ‘Save Of Week’ honors, but he still get’s a gold star for trying.
Both Pigot and Veach were cleared by the medical center after their accidents, walking away from their wrecked cars with only wounded pride. At the first opportunity, these two owe their mechanics a round of drinks as they’ll be working long in to the night to get the cars ready for qualifying.
There is one more short morning practice on Saturday at 8am ET. Qualifying gets underway at 11am. Both can be live-streamed here.