Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Teams turn attention to Indy 500 preparation
INDIANAPOLIS — IndyCar team owner Sam Schmidt started plotting Indianapolis 500 strategy even before Saturday’s race ended.
He certainly wasn’t alone.
With Will Power dominating practice, qualifying and the IndyCar Grand Prix for his first win of the season, just about everyone else in Gasoline Alley began looking ahead to Monday’s opening practice for the Indianapolis 500.
“Since we had such a crappy grand prix, I think (our focus) shifted 30 minutes ago,” Schmidt said shortly after the race ended. “Maybe even as much as an hour ago. We know we have good cars for the 500, and hopefully we can be as good as we were last year. Right now is when we start working on the cars for the 500.”
There’s no time to waste for anyone.
In less than 48 hours, speedway workers must convert the track from the 2.439-mile, 14-turn road course into the traditional 2.5-mile oval.
Crew members will scramble to change the cars to perform on four distinct corners and at speeds nearing or topping 230 mph.
Strategists will plan when to run in qualifying trim, when to run in race trim and how weather could affect next week’s two qualification rounds and the May 28 race.
Power, from Australia, drives for powerhouse Team Penske, which has won the 500 a record 16 times, three of the four road races in Indy and two of the last three series titles.
But since Brazil’s Helio Castroneves became the first foreign-born threetime winner in 2009, Penske’s team has won one 500 — in 2015, when Colombia’s Juan Pablo Montoya captured his second win. Another win would put Castroneves in the four-win club, which only has three members: A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears.
Last season, Alexander Rossi proved that anyone — even an underdog rookie — can win the race.
“The thing about the 500 is you don’t really have a plan, to be honest. It’s such a long race and it’s one of the few ones we don’t really necessarily go into with a set strategy, we just kind of play it by ear,” he said.