Indy 500 practice starts, qualifying tweaked
- Indianapolis Motor Speedway opens Indy 500 practice Tuesday, May 12, with 33 entries on track before a newly expanded two-day qualifying weekend. - The big format change is Sunday’s six-car “Final 15” shootout, where positions 10-15 from Saturday fight for the last three Top 12 spots. - Bumping still exists for the final three grid places, but Sunday now adds more stakes higher up the order.
Indy 500 month is starting with a rules tweak that changes what qualifying weekend feels like. Practice begins Tuesday, May 12 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the field is already set at 33 entries — but the bigger story is what happens Saturday and Sunday. IndyCar kept the familiar Top 12 and Fast Six pieces, then inserted a new middle round that turns the battle for rows three and four into its own event. ### What starts today? Track time starts Tuesday with Practice 1 from noon to 6 p.m. Eastern, kicking off four straight weekday sessions before Fast Friday on May 15. Then qualifying begins Saturday, May 16, with Day 1 running from 11 a.m. to 5:50 p.m. Eastern. Basically, the whole first week is still about building speed for one four-lap run that has to hold together under pressure. (indycar.com) ### How many cars are trying to make it? There are 33 entries for 33 starting spots this year. That matters because there is no full-field bump drama in the old sense of someone getting sent home from a 34th or 35th entry. But IndyCar did not turn Sunday into a dead zone — it rebuilt the format so teams still have something meaningful to fight over after Saturday. (indycar.com) ### So what changed in qualifying? Saturday now locks in positions 16-33 and also identifies the nine fastest cars, which go straight into Sunday’s Top 12 round. Cars that rank 10th through 15th on Saturday do not get their final grid spots yet. Instead, those six cars come back Sunday for a new round called the Final 15, and only three of them advance. (foxsports.com) ### What is the “Final 15” exactly? It is a six-car shootout scheduled for 4 p.m. Sunday. The six drivers — starting with the Saturday 15th-fastest and ending with the 10th-fastest — each get one traditional four-lap qualifying attempt. The fastest three move on to the Top 12 round, while the other three are slotted into positions 13, 14, and 15. That is the whole point of the change — Sunday now has a real elimination stage before the pole fight. (indycar.com) ### What stays the same after that? Once the Final 15 is done, the Top 12 round works mostly the way fans know it. The three survivors join the nine cars already locked in from Saturday, and the fastest six there move into the Firestone Fast Six. Those final six drivers then fight for positions 1-6, with pole still carrying the NTT P1 Award and a $100,000 prize. (indycar.com) ### Wait — is bumping gone or not? Not gone. Just narrowed. Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Sunday event page still says Day 2 includes a battle for the last three starting positions in the field of 33. But the new format adds another layer above that, so the drama is no longer only about survival at the back. It is also about clawing into the pole contest from the edge of the top group. (indycar.com) ### Why does IndyCar want that extra layer? Because with only 33 entries, the old Sunday structure risked feeling thin. The new version gives positions 10-15 something real to race for and keeps more recognizable names in the broadcast window. IndyCar also put every round on FOX, which tells you the series wants qualifying to feel like a full weekend show, not just a setup act for Race Day. (indianapolismotorspeedway.com) ### Who is in this field? The field includes nine past Indy 500 winners and five series champions. Alex Palou returns as the defending Indy 500 winner, while Helio Castroneves is chasing a record fifth victory at age 51. Josef Newgarden, Takuma Sato, Scott Dixon, Will Power, Alexander Rossi, Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Marcus Ericsson are also back, so the front of this thing should be crowded with people who know exactly what four clean laps at Indy require. (indycar.com) ### Bottom line? Practice opening Tuesday is the ceremonial start, but the real change is Sunday. IndyCar took a qualifying format that risked losing tension and gave the middle of the field a knife-edge playoff round instead. If it works, the fight for pole will feel bigger — and the fight just outside the pole group will finally matter, too. (foxsports.com)
