A two-hour post-Indianapolis 500 qualifying practice came to an early end due to the threat of incoming severe weather. Josef Newgarden, in the No. 2 Shell Fuel Rewards Team Penske Chevrolet, was the quickest driver, turning a lap at 226.198mph on his 16th of 34 laps. Ryan Hunter-Reay in the No. 31 Prize Picks Arrow McLaren Chevrolet was fourth quickest with Jack Harvey, in the No. 24 DRR INVST Chevrolet, Pato O\u2019Ward in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, Caio Collet in the No. 4 Combitrans Amazonia Chevrolet and Christian Rasmussen in the No. 21 Splenda Chevrolet all finishing in the top ten.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery happy to get some practice in before the weather got here, said the 2023 and 2024 Indianapolis 500 winner. \u201cThe Shell Fuel Rewards Chevy was very strong today in race trim. These next few days will be very important to come up with a good plan for Carb Day practice because we still have a few things to improve on. Obviously wish we had a better starting position, but we can move forward on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the storms hit, practice was interrupted by a three-car incident in Turn 2 that involved Chevrolet-powered drivers and top six qualifiers Alexander Rossi in the No. 20 Java House Chevrolet and O\u2019Ward, along with Romain Grosjean.<\/p>\n
Indianapolis 500 Monday Practice Results
NTT INDYCAR SERIES News Conference
Monday, May 18, 2026
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Press Conference<\/p>\n
THE MODERATOR: Ryan Hunter-Reay joins in the No. 31 PrizePicks Arrow McLaren Chevrolet. He\u2019s a 2014 winner, three top-5s in the 500. Sunday will be his 18th 500. He starts 22nd on the inside of row eight. Again, top 5 in that practice session today. What did you learn in the time you had out there, Ryan?<\/p>\n
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Well, it was great that we got it in or at least some of it, because the 31 team is a day and a half behind. So it was good to get into race running. We found some things that we needed to go into Carb Day.<\/p>\n
Yeah, thankful for the time on track and that Mother Nature kind of held off for us to sort the front grip out on the car.<\/p>\n
THE MODERATOR: Good stuff. We\u2019ll open it up for questions.<\/p>\n
Q. Kind of just to follow up off of that, obviously some issues early last week. Going through qualifying obviously probably not as eventful as you were hoping it might be, but I mean, how is the race car itself?<\/p>\n
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, the race car is pretty good. You know, it\u2019s funny. You come into this thinking, man, we got all the time in the world, let\u2019s just be patient, and all this. A couple hiccups here and there, and you find yourself starting to do Q-sims before Fast Friday comes in, and we\u2019re a bit behind on the race car.<\/p>\n
But I was happy with it. I was happy with the balance. We\u2019re within the operating window that I need to be in when it comes to racing in traffic. So I\u2019m happy about that, and we still will make the most of the hour that we have on Carb Day coming up.<\/p>\n
It is an hour, correct?<\/p>\n
THE MODERATOR: Two, actually.<\/p>\n
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Oh, bonus. Look at this. I\u2019m looking forward as I\u2019m sitting still.<\/p>\n
THE MODERATOR: Things are looking up.<\/p>\n
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, things are looking up.<\/p>\n
Q. Were you anywhere in the vicinity of Rossi\u2019s crash?<\/p>\n
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: No, I wasn\u2019t. I haven\u2019t seen it. I\u2019m eager to see the video, but no, I haven\u2019t. That\u2019s the thing with running in those big packs. One thing goes wrong, right, and there\u2019s not really a place to go sometimes, so\u2026<\/p>\n
Q. Have you had much of a chance to see what Pato\u2019s car looks like?<\/p>\n
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: No, what happened with Rossi\u2019s crash? Did he hit the curb on the Apex or anything? No?<\/p>\n
Q. Defer that to \u2014<\/p>\n
THE MODERATOR: Yeah, again, I\u2019m not a professional driver, but it looked like he lost it coming out of two at the Apex, and then same thing happened to Pato. Tried to get on the brakes.<\/p>\n
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, that\u2019s unfortunate. I mean, it\u2019s late, right? It\u2019s late, late in the big picture to start putting race cars back together, but glad that everybody was all right.<\/p>\n
Yeah, it just comes with the territory when running in a big pack like that. There\u2019s not really anywhere to go sometimes.<\/p>\n
Q. Is this going as well as you had hoped, or is there room for \u2014<\/p>\n
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: I\u2019ve had such a great time with this team and getting to know everybody and really put a lot of effort into being a regular within the team prior to coming here as a one-off. You know, these things happen. It\u2019s racing.<\/p>\n
Day one, electrical issues. You know, these cars are \u2014 they\u2019re complex to run. You really have a \u2014 you get a greater appreciation for that every time, if the computer won\u2019t talk to the car and vice versa, telemetry, and all this other stuff. They have to see what is going on. Especially Chevy has to see what\u2019s going on with the engine at all times in order to run.<\/p>\n
When you have a hiccup on that, we spent a lot of time on Tuesday sitting in the pit box trying to sort that. So good news is we have all that sorted. Unfortunately on Thursday we had a hybrid issue, had to change that out, had to split the car in half. Then Friday gear box issue.<\/p>\n
So not ideal. We\u2019ve definitely faced our challenges, but they\u2019ve been very resilient, and the crew has been working so hard.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s great to get into race running, because I\u2019ve always said, like I told them before the week started, for me the number one goal is always just focusing on the race car.<\/p>\n
Q. With the potential for the weather that\u2019s coming and we lost 60-ish minutes of practice today, and there was potential that we might lose weather on Carb Day, does that change your approach at all? As a follow-up to that, do you think it changes other teams\u2019 approaches, and does it mean that the track running that we saw today was particularly intense?<\/p>\n
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: No, I think a lot of teams are 90% to 95% of the way there on the race car after running so much and the week prior. For situations that we\u2019ve been in, we need every bit of track time that we can, because we are, like I said, a day and a half behind.<\/p>\n
So, no, it doesn\u2019t really change anything. Yeah, I would have preferred to continue to run for another 45 minutes or 50 minutes, whatever it is, but it is what it is. Same for everybody.<\/p>\n
Q. Can we read anything into the speed that you turned today, Ryan? Can we expect you to be coming through the pack like Newgarden did last year?<\/p>\n
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: I have every intention of doing that, for sure. I don\u2019t know. No, the speeds \u2014 so it\u2019s funny, because people have been here for so long. Even my family, like, my dad watches, and he\u2019s concerned about \u2014 or asking about where you end up at the end of the day in practice.<\/p>\n
Really it all comes down \u2014 if you intentionally go out and look for a big tow, it can happen. If you don\u2019t, you have to kind of fall into it out of luck. That\u2019s just what happened.<\/p>\n
It was the first time this week, week and a half that I just had an uninterrupted lap pulling up to two cars in front, and yeah, it\u2019s there.<\/p>\n
Like I said, unless you go out with intent to find a tow right on new tires, light fuel, which I know some teams do and tow up to a big group, you can put a big number up, yeah. But, no, it has zero relevance really to Sunday.<\/p>\n
Q. Ryan, I know this was the first day your pit crew was here with you since the open test. Were you able to get the hot stops in?<\/p>\n
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: We prioritized that just trying to get it in, right, so we could talk about it this week, and they can work on it. Yeah, we had great stops. We had one issue with the air jack, but we got in those stops.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s so important, right, for a one-off. All these other teams that we\u2019re up against are in mid-season form. So are the pit crews. As a one-off, you have to prioritize some of the things that maybe some of the other full-timers don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Q. Going into Friday, is that going to be the main priority?<\/p>\n
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: No, Friday I just have to continue to run in traffic. Every day is different around here with the wind shifting with the temperatures, everything, so you just have to continue to work through it, because you don\u2019t know what race day is, right?<\/p>\n
Once you get to race day, then you have to go back and look at the week and a half that you have data from and try and apply those conditions to the balance that you had on that day and put your best foot forward.<\/p>\n
GM PR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A two-hour post-Indianapolis 500 qualifying practice came to an early end due to the threat of incoming severe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-679454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}