Juri Vips will remain with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing for the 2024 IndyCar season, although how many races he will run remains an open question.

Team co-owner Bobby Rahal confirmed the news on Monday, saying that RLL has exercised its option to keep Vips with the team next year after he finished 18th and 24th in his only two IndyCar races this past season.

The 23-year-old Estonian driver drove the team’s #30 entry for the final two rounds of the 2023 season, and there was speculation that he would be announced as driver of that entry for next year.

Pietro Fittipaldi was announced as the full season driver instead, but Vips may still compete in a few races as RLL still tries to put together all the pieces needed to field a fourth car.

That process is not coming along as quickly as Bobby Rahal would like, but he is still hopeful that he will be able to field the fourth car for a few races to get Vips more seat time next season.

“Yeah, we exercised our option with Juri,” confirmed Rahal. “As I said before I don’t know when it was, several months ago. We see Juri as a long-term play as well.

“We’d like to run a fourth car. We’re not making as much progress on that as we would like. That’s certainly a hope. Maybe it’s only a selected number of races, maybe one, maybe it’s none. We’re not quite sure.

“There’s one thing we did know, is we wanted to keep Juri in our family. He did a great job for us in Portland and fab job in Laguna. It’s a shame chaos caught him at the start.

“All in all, very impressed with Juri. We certainly wanted to keep him within our organization.

“Certainly we’re not going to rush right into a fourth car for the reasons you mentioned. You’ve got to be prepared to do that, to do it correctly, to do it so that fourth car actually contributes going forward.

“I think we certainly saw some improvements last year. Obviously our poor performance in Indianapolis still is by far outweighing every other thing we did last year. I think we’re making progress on it already.

“The first thing, you’re right, we’ve got three [cars], and we’ve got three strong drivers in those cars. The first goal is to have them consistently run up front. We do that before we do anything else.

“But I do like the drivers that we have in terms of the entire lineup with Juri, obviously with Pietro [Fittipaldi], Graham [Rahal] and Christian [Lundgaard]. I think that’s a pretty strong driver lineup.

“Ganassi is running five cars. Andretti has run four cars. So people are doing it. We just have to make sure we’re in the position to do it and do it well.”

RLL fielded four cars for the first time for the 2023 Indy 500, bringing in Katherine Legge to drive the #44 entry.

Rahal said at the time that his team would only expand to four cars if it made sense to do so, and was adamant that the additional car did not play into the team’s poor performance at the historic race.

Even if he does not get much seat time next year, Vips will be working with the team to help them get a leg up on the competition as the series races with hybrid components for the first time.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has announced that it has hired Pietro Fittipaldi to drive the #30 entry for the full 2024 IndyCar season.

The 27-year-old Brazilian, and grandson of two-time Indy 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi, will race alongside Graham Rahal and Christian Lundgaard for the upcoming season.

Fittipaldi has made nine IndyCar starts in previous years, earning his experience with Dale Coyne Racing in 2018 and 2021.

He had planned to run more races after his Indy 500 run in May of 2021, but was forced to take time off to recover from broken legs suffered in a WEC accident at Spa Francorchamps.

Once healed, he returned to sportscar racing and earned a spot as the current Haas F1 reserve driver.

Fittipaldi’s return to IndyCar will see him compete in the full 17-race season for the first time, as well as the Thermal Club exhibition race in March.

“It’s an honor to join a team of the caliber of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing,” said Fittipaldi.

“With the experience I’ve gained over the last few years in F1 and other racing series, I am looking forward to the challenge of racing in IndyCar, one of the most competitive and versatile racing series in the world.

“I want to thank Mr. Rahal, Mr. Lanigan, and Mr. Letterman for the opportunity and their trust and confidence in me. I can’t wait to get started.”

RLL evaluated two drivers in the #30 after releasing Jack Harvey midseason, placing Conor Daly and Juri Vips behind the wheel in the final three races.

The intention was to find a driver that could take the reins for this upcoming season, but instead the team has called Fittipaldi over from his recent LMP2 sportscar campaign.

“I’m very pleased that we’ve been able to have Pietro [Fittipaldi] join RLL as the driver of the #30 car,” said team co-owner Bobby Rahal.

“He has had previous experience in IndyCar in doing partial seasons with Dale Coyne Racing and impressively qualifying 13th at Indianapolis in 2021.

“I got to meet him then and since that time he has worked hard to become the reserve driver for Haas F1’s team. And from our discussions, I have been impressed with the maturity and experience that he will now bring to our program.

“I look forward to seeing what he can do over a full season of IndyCar competition in 2024.”

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing announced on Monday that Juri Vips would be climbing behind the wheel of the #30 entry for the final two races of the IndyCar season.

The races will be the Estonian driver’s first in America, and will be the first time he has raced competitively in nearly a year. Although he has completed two test days with RLL during that time, the most recent being at Barber Motorsports park in March.

Vips advanced through the junior formulae in Europe, and drove for Hitech for two seasons in Formula 2, earning three race wins in that time.

He was also a part of the Red Bull Junior program, until he was quickly dropped following a highly-publicized use of a slur in an online gaming match.

The 23-year-old is looking to put that episode of his life behind him with the recent announcement, and is looking forward to trying his hand at IndyCar for the first time this upcoming weekend.

He will compete at Portland International Raceway this weekend and at Laguna Seca the following Sunday, and will also participate in an open test day held between those two events.

“I’m super happy to get the opportunity with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and very thankful to Bobby [Rahal], Mike [Lanigan] and everyone at the team,” said Vips. “I haven’t been driving all year so the anticipation for this opportunity has been immense but I’m really looking forward to starting again.

“We tested together at the end of 2022 in Sebring and it seemed like we just gelled. I got along with everyone and I really like the atmosphere at the team. Bobby’s also one to give second chances and I’m extremely grateful that he is giving me one and I really hope to bring a good result for him, Mike and the whole team.”

The #30 entry that Vips will be piloting was left vacant after RLL dropped Jack Harvey mid-season. Conor Daly filled in for the recent race at Gateway, and now Vips will get his shot.

The team is using these final races, and the open test a Laguna Seca before the event, to evaluate drivers for a potential 2024 race seat.

The fact that the team has chosen to run Vips for both of the final races lends weight to the possibility that he will be offered that vacancy, pending his performance in the next couple weekends.

RLL team owner Bobby Rahal was adamant that the young driver has learned from his mistakes, paid his dues, and is ready to rebuild his name via his on-track performance.

Vips will complete his first race weekend laps in IndyCar this Friday, with the opening practice session at Portland taking place at 3:00 PM Pacific Time.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has released Jack Harvey from its IndyCar team with immediate effect, opting to bring in replacement drivers for the remainder of the season.

The next race on August 27, which takes place at World Wide Technology Raceway, also known as Gateway, will have Conor Daly behind the wheel of the #30 entry.

Harvey’s performance has lagged since switching to RLL in 2022, and he has only recorded a single top 10 finish in that time.

His performance was a downturn from what he had been achieving in his time at Meyer Shank Racing, where he was scoring finishes in the top 10 with relative frequency.

Bringing new drivers into the #30 for the final three races of the year gives RLL a chance to evaluate their options before committing to anyone for next season.

“First, I would like to thank Jack Harvey for all of his efforts on behalf of RLL for the last year and a half,” said RLL team owner Bobby Rahal.

“He committed fully to the team but for whatever reason, we weren’t able to achieve the results that he or the team deserves and we wish him well in the future.

“We will use the final three races of the season to gauge other racing talent. I’m very pleased that Conor [Daly] has agreed to join us in St. Louis. He’s been strong there and I feel that he can bring value to the team while also providing us with a strong effort. I look forward to having him with us.”

Daly was himself released earlier this season from Ed Carpenter Racing, and has been searching for a replacement seat since then.

He filled in for an injured Simon Pagenaud with Meyer Shank Racing at a couple events, and now finds himself working with yet another team.

Harvey posted his own statement on social media, acknowledging the departure and lodging his intent to find another home within IndyCar.

“It’s no secret that my time at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing didn’t go as planned,” said Harvey. “It was not through a lack of effort.

“I leave confident that I put my everything into every moment as a member of the team.

“I am thankful for the time and effort that every crew member put in over the last two years. This has been challenging for everyone involved. I love my crew and their unwavering support.

“Only time will tell what the future holds. I am more motivated than ever to find a new home in IndyCar to showcase what I am capable of doing behind the wheel of a race car. We are not defined by our failures but rather how we respond to them.

“This is just one chapter in my story and I look forward to writing the next.”

The last time Harvey was without a ride in IndyCar was for portions of the 2019 season, when he was signed as a part-time entry for MSR.

Daly’s deal with RLL is only for the upcoming race at Gateway currently, with the driver for the #30 for the final two races at Portland and Laguna Seca still undecided.

IndyCar took to the familiar Indianapolis road course on Friday afternoon to set the grid for the final race of the year around the familiar course.

Clouds rolled in for the session and gusty winds threatened to disrupt the balance of the 27 cars on the track where margins are razor thin.

When the dust settled on the knockout qualifying session, it was Graham Rahal who put his #15 entry in the top spot.

READ MORE: IndyCar IMS road course – Full Qualifying Results

The pole is Rahal’s first in six years, and bookends one of the largest gaps between IndyCar poles in series history.

He completed his lap in 1:10.1132, and completes a redemption run of sorts after having a Month of May to forget, which saw him bumped out of the Indy 500 before finding a seat with Dreyer and Reinbold Racing.

Rahal’s team-mate Christian Lundgaard very nearly took the top spot for himself, but was forced to settle for second place as he missed out by just over a tenth of a second.

The second row was locked out by Arrow McLaren, with Alexander Rossi and Pato O’Ward taking the third and fourth grid slots respectively.

The third row was a team affair as well, with Andretti Autosport locking out the final two spots of the Fast Six.

Devlin DeFrancesco surprised the field with his pace and advanced to his first ever Fast Six round. Romain Grosjean was a hair slower on his final run, and locked in the sixth spot.

Alex Palou, the runaway points leader as the season nears its conclusion, was only able to manage the ninth qualifying spot.

The 2021 champion likely has nothing to worry about, however, and will earn his second championship as long as he doesn’t come across some horrendous luck in the final races of the season.

Scott McLaughlin was even lower on the boards, and was barely able to sneak into the second round of qualifying.

The skilled driver came into the weekend with a new approach to his car’s setup in order to attempt to an improvement on his pervious performances, but those did not appear to help him very much.

Overall, Team Penske had a qualifying to forget. McLaughlin was the only driver among the team to even advance to the second round, with Will Power and Josef Newgarden earning the 17th and 19th starting spots respectively.

It is an ominous sign for the team that has won more races than any other around the familiar road course.

There is one final warm-up session later in the day on Friday, and then it’s straight into the 85-lap race on Saturday afternoon.

Eight weeks after a disastrous Indianapolis 500 literally took a toll on his health, Bobby Rahal is seeing his team take big strides towards recovery as IndyCar enters the final stretch of the 2023 season.

His Rahal Letterman Lanigan team earned its first IndyCar win in over three years last weekend on the streets of Toronto, with his rising star of a driver Christian Lundgaard converting pole into his maiden victory in the series.

The result was something Rahal could hardly have imagined just a short while ago, and is the product of some drastic changes made behind the scenes to correct a troublesome trend in the team’s performance.

Striking a serious tone among his race win celebrations, Rahal described to media how hard it has been to make the necessary changes that have led to the team’s quick turnaround.

“Making changes is difficult because it’s obviously affecting people’s lives, and that’s not fun,” said the 70-year-old team owner.

“When everybody says, ‘Oh, it must be great to be a president of the company.’ Yeah, it’s great until the minute you have to let somebody go. Then you feel like crap, whether they deserved it or not.

“Just things weren’t working. I think that we felt we just had to — you know what they say about the definition of insanity is keep doing the same thing time and time again and expecting a different result.

“I just felt that we were at that point. We needed to give some people some opportunities that they maybe had been wanting for a while and hadn’t been given that opportunity. I think that contributed to this turnaround of sorts. Just different atmosphere.

“You know, again, it’s no fun making those kind of decisions. I mean, it’s no fun at all, but we have to. We’re a company. We represent great companies.

“We have great people within our team, and we have an obligation to those groups, to the people within our team, and to our sponsors. So you have to do what you have to do.”

The RLL team has been slowly expanding in recent years, and for the first time in its 30 year history has fielded three full time IndyCar entries for the last two seasons.

The team also began working out of a brand new shop this year, which houses the IndyCar and IMSA squads in the same facility.

Rahal and the rest of the team had hoped that investing in their resources would immediately give a boost their performance, but instead they found themselves struggling this year.

Often coming to the track with setups that were far from optimal, RLL attempted to find the source of the problem before the heart of the season approached.

A quick solution was not found, however, and Rahal watched on as his son Graham Rahal was bumped out of the Indy 500 by one of his own team-mates on qualifying day. That sequence delivered a big hit to the longtime owner’s pride.

“Well, after Indy, the month of May took — I’m 70 years old, and the month of May took a real toll on me. I wasn’t sleeping well at night. We’re here to win. We’re not here to fricking play around or to be part of it. We’re here to win.

“I’m telling you, it was bad. So much so that I thought my physical health had been — you know, a year ago in June I had open heart surgery. This May, I mean, it knocked me back a few steps because I’m not here just to show up. I’m here to win.

“All the effort [Christian Lundgaard] and Graham [Rahal] and Jack [Harvey] and our team. Everybody is working their butt off, and it haunted me. It pained me.

“That’s why I just said right after Indy, I said, ‘We’re going to create and instill and initiate the Indy Recovery Plan,’ which we’re in the process of doing. Which is all about looking into why we performed so poorly and fixing those issues so that next May we’re fighting for the pole, and that’s our goal.

“I’ve got great people to help me do that: Steve Eriksen, Stefano Sordo, Ricardo Nault. May was hell for me. That’s why we made the decisions that we made, and they weren’t easy. I think we’re getting the results of those, but I don’t take any confidence that we’re there yet.”

Rahal confirmed that part of his ‘Indy Recovery Plan’ included letting some of his staff members go so that he could bring in some fresh perspectives.

He took those decisions very personally, and was very cognizant of the lives and families he was disrupting in order to make room for new people in the operation.

Nearly two months on, it seems as if that plan of attack is beginning to manifest itself with more consistent pace on track the past couple race weekends.

Christian Lundgaard earning pole and his first win in Toronto is just the most visible part of the team’s recovery, as there are many other pieces that are beginning to work better behind the scenes.

Rahal reiterated after the Toronto weekend how proud he is of the whole team for working through the changes, and that he expects more good things to come from their continued efforts.

“Detroit really — that bothered me more than Indy because we should have been — I mean, we won Detroit several years ago, the two races. We won that race. Then to go back there and be so out of it, that just really bothered me.

“I have to tell you it was emotional for me because of the hell that we went through in the last six weeks and to have a race like we had this weekend, and to see Graham going from 27th to ninth, I mean, Jesus.

“Yeah, I’m just very proud of the team, very proud of the working relationships we have within the team, whether it’s with Christian and Graham and Jack or the engineers or what have you.

“So, anyway, you have to make changes that you think are right, and thankfully we’ve had some good results since then, but we’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing. You just can’t rest on our laurels. We have to keep pushing.”

The 107th running on the Indianapolis 500 is still nearly a week away, but already this year’s event is proving to be one of the worst that Rahal Letterman Lanigan has ever had.

The team came away from qualifying weekend with one of their four entrants relegated out of the lineup, and then on Monday had another one crash heavily into the wall.

But even before the many Indy 500 on-track sessions got underway, RLL was in a tough spot. They have consistently struggled with setup and pace throughout the 2023 season, and have often been at a loss to explain the cause.

The team’s veteran driver Graham Rahal was quite vocal during his early season struggles, telling media multiple times that the team simply needs to do better if they plan to have competitive weekends.

Unfortunately, despite a brief resurgence at the GMR Grand Prix in early May when Christian Lundgaard took pole, the team has continued to struggle with pace.

The unthinkable happened during qualifying for the Indy 500, when one of the team’s drivers, Jack Harvey, bumped his team-mate Graham Rahal out of the race completely as time expired.

It was a gut punch, and was the first time RLL failed to qualify one of its cars since 2013.

“It’s hard to imagine it’s us in this position, but I could have told you at the [Indy 500] test in April that we’re in trouble,” Rahal said after missing the cut. “You [struggle at] that test and it’s too late, and it just came to a head today.

“I told you, [the car] was just really slow. It just sucks. It’s life. You’ve got to go through hurdles, bad ones of some sort. This is my turn.”

Team owner Bobby Rahal was bumped out of the Indy 500 himself once as a driver, failing to make the show in 1993 while driving for Rahal-Hogan Racing.

What the elder Rahal didn’t get that year was a second chance. But Graham was called up to fill in for an injured Stef Wilson in the Dreyer and Reinbold / Cusick Motorsports entry on Tuesday, just a couple days after he was bumped from the starting grid in his RLL car.

That opportunity came at the expense of even more trouble for RLL, as the crash that injured Wilson also involved the team’s fourth driver Katherine Legge and she hit the wall hard in the accident. She was uninjured, but the car suffered significant damage.

The primary #44 chassis was already barely competitive enough to make the show, qualifying in the 30th position, and now it will have to be rebuilt entirely in order to be ready for the race this upcoming weekend.

When asked if adding a fourth car to the team’s Indy 500 lineup has had any adverse effects on the team’s preparation, and ultimately pace at this year’s race, Bobby Rahal explained that the additional car is not a drain on their organization.

“Well, I don’t think we would have done this if we didn’t feel that a fourth car would contribute to the performance of the organization,” said Rahal.

“In years past, we’ve run three cars, and I would say the third car maybe really — when you run multi-car teams it’s very easy to — where one of the cars can become a drain on the organization rather than additive or contributory to the performance of the team.

“We knew we were going to run this fourth car a year ago. Hendrickson came to us, and they wanted to be in the 500 for this year, and that was last year when they made the commitment. So we’ve been spending a year preparing ourselves personnel-wise, equipment-wise.

“Do we want to run four cars in the future? You know, if the funding is correct. We have the equipment, so that’s not an issue. We have people, so that’s not an issue. I think we would.

“It would just depend what the situation would be. We certainly would not be less than three. But especially for this race, having a fourth car is I think a positive for sure.”

Of course, the team now only has three cars for the remainder of this year’s event. Having four entries may have put them in a better place than they would have been, but there was no hiding that they were still the worst-performing team in the build up to the Indy 500.

The moral victory of helping to arrange all the necessary sponsorships and agreements for their veteran driver to take over at a competing team shortly before the race does not erase the fact that he was available in the first place due to their poor performance a couple days before.

If the team was hoping that the Indy 500 was going to be the catalyst that helped them get back on track this season, they have to be doubly disappointed with how things are progressing so far.

Dreyer and Reinbold Racing has announced that Graham Rahal will replace Stefan Wilson for the upcoming Indianapolis 500.

The team worked tirelessly over the past 24 hours to get the deal put into place that will see Rahal climb behind the wheel of their car.

Rahal had been bumped out of the race during qualifying in his normal #15 RLL entry, but now has a second chance at competing in the race via this deal that was thrown together at the last moment.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” said DRR owner Dennis Reinbold. “I don’t have a script, so that’s kind of consistent with how the last day has gone. We’re excited to put Graham in the car.

“It was a tough deal, we had the month going really well with Stefan. He is getting further evaluation today, I know, going in for X-rays here soon to sort of determine the path of what’s best for him.

“We had to do a lot of work yesterday afterwards to get things put together with Graham, and there were a lot of hurdles involved.

“From the start of this yesterday afternoon, Bobby [Rahal] immediately came over and spoke to me, and we put our heads down to try to figure out how we could make this happen, if we could.

“A lot of the concerns he had were with Graham’s sponsors, and we have some flexibility, and he stepped in, Bobby stepped in and really made it work out to where we could do different things and shift things around, and I worked with Don [Cusick] in that regard, as well.

“It’s just been a group effort to try to figure out what we can do, so yeah, our car will look a little bit different to accommodate some of those things in order for us all to work together and just get to the end goal.”

Wilson was injured in a crash during Monday’s practice sessions, which saw his #24 entry hit the outside SAFER barrier nose first.

The 33-year-old was extracted from his car via stretcher and was taken directly to a local hospital for advanced imaging.

It was revealed later in the day that he suffered a fracture in his vertebrae, and would not be able to race in the Indy 500 next weekend.

Team owners Don Cusick and Dennis Reinbold worked with IndyCar officials and many different manufacturers in the paddock to get all the paperwork and approvals needed to bring the veteran onboard on such short notice.

The biggest hurdle was the fact that Rahal drives with a Honda powerplant, and has done so for most of his career, and DRR is powered by a Chevy motor.

Honda and Chevy both had to sign off on letting Rahal move over and drive the #24 for this race, and Rahal was very grateful for being allowed to accept the invitation.

On account of switching to a different car, Rahal will start from the 33rd and final position on Sunday.

That places him among his RLL team-mates on the grid, which will be an awkward situation among plenty of unique experiences for the veteran.

“First off, I think as everybody said, I certainly feel for Stef,” said Rahal. “I know how much he puts into this, year in and year out, to get the opportunity to be here and to see what happened to him is never good.

“I know emotionally the roller coaster he’s on right now, unfortunately. I’ve just lived it, as well, and I know that he’ll be back really strong and better than ever. That said, too, the Wilson family certainly in my life has had a very strong impact.

“Clearly this is Stef’s ride. It’s his seat. He’s done a great job to get it to the point that it is. It was an honor for me to receive the call.

“I felt every emotion over the last couple of days. But as I’ve always said, and Dennis [Reinbold] knows this well, that’s Indy. It can put you through a vicious cycle, and you never know what’s going to happen, how it’s going to take place.

“We don’t know how it’s going to end up in five, six days’ time. But at the end of the day, when an opportunity like this comes, you certainly are honored to get the call.

“For me, I won’t lie, I really did feel excited to have the sense that another team had the respect at least for me to call. It was a great opportunity to come out here and try to perform and be able to race this Sunday.

“I must say, Dennis mentioned Chevy, and equally so Honda, for allowing me to do this. I think I told Dennis when he called me, I said, ‘I’m not really sure I want to waste your time.’

“I’ve spent my entire career in a Honda. I’ve never driven anything other than that. I’m not really sure that we’ll be able to get the releases in place to be able to make this happen.

“They really came together, two manufacturers, to allow this to take place, to allow us to go race on Sunday, and hopefully get this car moving towards the front and have a really, really strong run.”

The Last Chance Qualifying session for the Indianapolis 500 took place Sunday afternoon, and it was Graham Rahal that was eliminated from contention in the most dramatic moment of the Month of May so far.

There were four drivers that were in the elimination zone entering the day, and they had to fight to keep their chances of running in the Indy 500 alive.

One hour was set aside for the brawl for the final row, and drivers were able to make as many attempts as time allowed.

READ MORE: IndyCar Indy 500 – Full Qualifying Results

There was always one driver that would be disappointed after the day, as 34 drivers were competing for 33 positions on the grid.

All four drivers made their first four-lap runs, and right away Jack Harvey was the slowest of the bunch and was in the drop spot.

Only one driver made multiple attempts in the final hour of running, because a majority of them were safe if their first runs held as they were.

Harvey made three runs in total, but was never able to move forward until his last and final run as the time window expired.

He even ran multiple times in the final 10 minutes, the team choosing to not give his Honda engine proper time to cool down on pit lane.

But a late suggestion from his team to try different settings on his onboard adjustments seemed to make the difference, and he was able to leapfrog his team-mate Graham Rahal at the last second.

Harvey’s final set of laps was competed at an average of 229.166 MPH, just fractionally ahead of Rahal’s 229.159 MPH average.

It was a gut punch for Rahal, and he was forced to cut interviews short as tears prevented him from putting his thoughts together knowing that he would not be participating in the Indy 500 for the first time in 15 years.

There were three Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing drivers out of the four in the bump zone, so it was likely that one of them was going to miss the cut.

It’s the first time a RLL car has missed the cutoff for the Indianapolis since 2013, when Michel Jourdain Jr. failed to get himself into the top 33 positions.

Along with Jack Harvey, fellow RLL driver Christian Lundgaard and Dale Coyne Racing rookie Sting Ray Robb cemented their positions in the race, albeit on the final row.

Saturday afternoon was the first day of qualifying for the Indianapolis 500, and it was dedicated to locking in the middle portion of the field.

The fastest 12 drivers earned the right to compete for pole on Sunday, and likewise, the bottom four drivers will be forced to come back on track Sunday to fight for a spot on the grid.

Qualification times were set by averaging four consecutive laps around the 2.5-mile oval, and challenged drivers to stay perfect for 10 miles at a time.

The fastest driver of the day was Felix Rosenqvist, and he clocked an average speed of 233.947 MPH in his Arrow McLaren Chevy.

He unseated his team-mate later in the afternoon with a perfect run, and Alexander Rossi lost the honor of having his name on the top of the leaderboards.

The exact positions do not technically matter, as all the front runners will return to whittle the eligible drivers down to six, then those will take the track once again to finally decide the pole sitter.

All four drivers from the Arrow McLaren squad will advance to Sunday, as well as all four Chip Ganassi Racing drivers, both AJ Foyt drivers, one Ed Carpenter Racing entry by way of Rinus VeeKay, and a lone Team Penske entry, represented by Will Power.

At the other end of the field, the four drivers that will be fighting for the final three positions are mostly composed of a single team.

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing camp could never quite find their footing, and Graham Rahal, Jack Harvey, and Christian Lundgaard will be fighting against one another in Sunday’s last chance qualifying.

Dale Coyne Racing has one driver that was also in the bump zone, with rookie Sting Ray Robb among the unfortunate group.

The four drivers will have two hours dedicated to their efforts on Sunday afternoon, and one will be sent packing without taking part in the Indy 500.

And all of those drivers are full time participants in the championship, meaning that their early exit will have devastating points implications as well.

David Malukas was very nearly among those at the bottom of the field, but a late set of laps with just a few minutes remaining jumped him up to the 23rd position and guaranteed him a spot in the Indy 500.

Ed Carpenter is the first driver that is locked into his position, and he will start his 20th Indy 500 from 13th.

He will start alongside Scott McLaughlin and Kyle Kirkwood on the fifth row on the three-wide grid. Conor Daly, Josef Newgarden, and Ryan Hunter-Reay will make up the row behind.

Newgarden made one of the biggest gamble of the day, choosing to abandon his previous time to make a run in the final minutes as the sun was lowering on the horizon.

He was not faster than his earlier time, but luckily he was only slightly slower and only lost a single position.

All of the single event drivers are locked in, including Abel Motorsports’ RC Enerson and RLL’s Katherine Legge. Those two drivers were the final two drivers to guarantee themselves a spot in the race, and had a very nervous final few minutes.

The front and the back of the field will be determined on Sunday, with the first runs taking place at 2:00 PM Eastern. The pole will be determined later in the afternoon, at roughly 5:15 PM.