News

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (May 6, 2008) – Today marked the first day of practice for the 92nd running of the Indianapolis 500. 

31 cars practiced on the fabled 2.5-mile oval, with some teams electing to run both their primary and backup (T) machines during the six-hour session.  Team Penske drivers Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe fared well today, with Briscoe posting a fourth-fastest lap (40.0349 seconds, 224.804 mph) in his No. 6 Dallara/Honda and Castroneves sixth fastest (40.0755, 224.576 mph) in the No. 3 machine. 

Practice resumes tomorrow, May 7, from noon to 6 p.m. E.T.  Pole day is this coming Saturday, May 10 and the race is Sunday, May 25.

Quotes from today’s practice session:

Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Team Penske Dallara/Honda: "We were able to run both cars today, which is good for our first day of practice. We finished in the in the top six, so I'm happy with our results. All in all, we're putting the pieces together and by the end of the week, hopefully we'll be where we need to be. It's like a chess game out here and today we started playing out our strategy and positioning our pieces.  I'll tell you, it's great to be back here at Indy and I'm hoping for a successful month."

Ryan Briscoe, No. 6 Team Penske Dallara/Honda: “I’ve really been looking forward to coming to Indianapolis as part of Team Penske. What this organization has been able to do here is truly remarkable. Just turning my first laps this afternoon really was a special feeling for me. We tried to start with comfortable setup on the car today and just turn some laps to see if we could learn anything new. We really haven’t done a lot in terms of trimming the car out to go for pure speed, but I’m sure that will come as the week goes on. Today was really about me getting comfortable with my crew and my engineer on this track and learning how to communicate what I need from the car here. The good news is that we were in pretty good shape on the speed charts, so we’re pleased with what we accomplished today.” 

Practice Speeds For Day One of Indianapolis 500 (position, car number, driver, chassis-engine and speed in miles per hour):

1. (26) Marco Andretti, Dallara-Honda, 226.599 (39.7177 seconds)

2. (11) Tony Kanaan, Dallara-Honda, 225.269

3. (9) Scott Dixon, Dallara-Honda, 225.011

4. (6) Ryan Briscoe, Dallara-Honda, 224.804 (40.0349 seconds)

5. (10) Dan Wheldon, Dallara-Honda, 224.727

6. (3) Helio Castroneves, Dallara-Honda, 224.576 (40.0755 seconds)

7. (12) Tomas Scheckter, Dallara-Honda, 224.436

8. (15) Buddy Rice, Dallara-Honda, 224.170

9. (7) Danica Patrick, Dallara-Honda, 224.095

10. (8) Will Power, Dallara-Honda, 223.550

11. (02) Justin Wilson, Dallara-Honda, 223.461

12. (4T) Vitor Meira, Dallara-Honda, 223.352

13. (27) Hideki Mutoh, Dallara-Honda, 223.225

14. (33) EJ Viso, Dallara-Honda, 222.643

15. (20) Ed Carpenter, Dallara-Honda, 222.633

16. (16) Alex Lloyd, Dallara-Honda, 222.620

17. (99) Townsend Bell, Dallara-Honda, 222.583

18. (06) Graham Rahal, Dallara-Honda, 222.552

19. (5) Oriol Servia, Dallara-Honda, 221.883

20. (22) Davey Hamilton, Dallara-Honda, 221.684

21. (17) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Dallara-Honda, 221.640

22. (2) A.J. Foyt IV, Dallara-Honda, 221.615

23. (14) Darren Manning, Dallara-Honda, 221.314

24. (36T) Enrique Bernoldi, Dallara-Honda, 220.978

25. (18) Bruno Junqueira, Dallara-Honda, 220.961

26. (44) Max Papis, Dallara-Honda, 220.686

27. (25T) Marty Roth, Dallara-Honda, 220.460

28. (96) Mario Dominguez, Dallara-Honda, 218.552

29. (19) Mario Moraes, Dallara-Honda, 218.159

30. (67) Sarah Fisher, Dallara-Honda, 217.866

31. (23) Milka Duno, Dallara-Honda, 217.412