McLaughlin quickest at Indy as ugly crashes mar Fast Friday

McLaughlin ran a session-best 233.954 mph lap in the #3 Team Penske Chevy ahead of compatriot Scott Dixon. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver has the quickest four-lap average of any driver.

It was a day of dominance for Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing, and Andretti Autosport. After Dixon came his teammate Alex Palou with a 232.585 mph effort.

Andretti duo Kyle Kirkwood and Colton Herta were fourth and fifth while Will Power was sixth.

The top 10 was completed by Christian Lundgaard (McLaren), Conor Daly (Juncos Hollinger Racing), Marcus Armstrong (Meyer Shank Racing), and Sting Ray Robb (Juncos Hollinger Racing).

The day’s running was punctuated by two big crashes, the first of which was the most dramatic involving Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyffin Simpson.

The #11 driver got airborne after he slapped the wall out of Turn 4, putting the car onto its side before come back down on all four wheels.

“I’m all good, praise the lord,” said Simpson.

“It’s a tough one. A tough way to start out Fast Friday. Just a weird crash. Everything about it was weird.

“It was weird. Even from the out-lap, something didn’t feel quite right. I kept going right on my weight jacker, trying to help the car out and it just never really felt the way I expected it to.

“It was just a weird one. We’ll go back, look at some data, try to figure out what might have been wrong and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Simpson failed to complete a lap of the speedway, putting him last in the 34-car pile.

After Simpson, McLaren’s Kyle Larson crashed out of Turn 3.

“I’m okay. Just had a lot of front grip there in [Turn] 3 and just kind of bit and felt it come around – and it comes around quick once it does that,” said Larson.

“Yeah, a bummer. It is what it is. At least we’ve found both ends of the spectrum. At the Open Test I hit it with the right front and today I backed it in.

“I’m not too worried about it. I think we’ll be fine. Track conditions will be better tomorrow and we’ll still be fast.

“Obviously it’s tricky. I spun. I kind of got caught off guard there. Like I said, I think we’ll be fine. We tend to get over things pretty quickly.

“I know I spun, but my balance felt pretty close to being good. Just work on it a little bit, and like I said, we’ll be good tomorrow. The track will be cooler. We’ll be fine.”

Qualifying gets underway at 1am AEST on Sunday.

Results: 109th Indianapolis 500, Fast Friday