Dario ‘speedwagon’ tops day 5 practice at Indy

IndyCar ace Dario Franchitti topped the times on day five of practice for the 97th running of the Indianapolis 500.

Driving the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing entry, Franchitti topped 244.235mph (40.1363s) with less than 30 minutes to go in the six-hour session.

Half of the field circulated in packs in order to perfect the ideal set-up in traffic ahead of America’s prestigious open-wheel race on May 26.

“It doesn’t really count for much, but it’s nice nonetheless,” triple Indianapolis 500 winner Franchitti said.

“Right now we’re still very much in the preparation stage; we’re making changes to the car and sometimes doing one and two lap runs. I think we had a pretty tough morning there and made some big changes to the Target car in the afternoon.”

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Townsend Bell (#60 Sunoco ‘Turbo’ Panther Racing) was second quickest in practice 5 in 223.716mph ahead of Penske star Helio Castroneves (223.699mph).

The third Ganassi driver, Ryan Briscoe was fifth in 223.093mph (40.3945s) while Scott Dixon (#9 Ganassi Honda) was ninth in 222.312mph.

Will Power was down in 23rd in the #12 Penske Chevrolet as the Indy pilots completed a combined total of 7152 laps from the five practice runs this week around the 2.5mile superspeedway.