Indianapolis, IN, United States (AHN Sports) – It was Bump Day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Marco Andretti and Alex Lloyd bumped their way into next Sunday’s 100th Indianapolis 500.
With dramatic qualifying runs in the final 10 minutes, the two were nine drivers among 14 looking to secure a spot in the 33-car grid.
“I wonder if the track just got better, or what. I knew we were going to be hanging it out at the end there,” Andretti said. “Our approach was we’re going home anyway. Really, I mean, the way we went out, it was either stick it in the fence or stick it in the show. So luckily we were on the upside of that.”
The six-hour qualifying session was interrupted twice by rain and with 75 minutes left, Danica Patrick put the No. 7 car solidly in the field with a four-lap average of 224.861 mph.
Eight drivers failed to gain enough speed to force Andretti to re-qualify until Lloyd of Dale Coyne Racing, who finished fourth in the Indy 500 last May, put together an average speed of 223.917 mph.
“It’s been probably one of the most stressful weekends I think I’ve had in my career,” Lloyd said. “I remember it last year, we had to qualify on Bump Day last year. I remember that being pretty stressful, and I didn’t want anything to do with it this year. Fortunately, last year we got in comfortably on Bump Day; we had the speed.”
Mike Conway was among the entrants who failed to qualify and also not making the show were Raphael Matos, Sebastian Saavedra and Jakes. Dragon Racing’s Ho-Pin Tung and Scott Speed did not complete qualifying attempts.
Lloyd will be joined on the last row by rookie Pippa Mann of Conquest Racing and Ana Beatriz of Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. Andretti will start on Row 10 with rookie Charlie Kimball and Graham Rahal, while Paul Tracy will share Row 9 with Patrick and Ryan Briscoe.
This is the closest matched field by time in Indianapolis 500 history — 2.5399 seconds separate fastest qualifier Alex Tagliani and slowest qualifier Beatriz. The record was 3.0622 seconds set in 2010.
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