Ericsson fastest as Ganassi tops second Indy 500 practice

Marcus Ericsson was fastest on the second day of practice for this year’s Indianapolis 500 with Scott Dixon a repeat second.

It was the second Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) one-two in as many days, with Takuma Sato topping the timesheet in a belated first practice where Dixon also finished second-fastest.

Day 2 saw last year’s Indy 500 winner Ericsson post a 229.607mph lap, besting Sato’s 229.439mph from Wednesday, while Dixon improved marginally on his second day of running with a 229.186mph against his Wednesday best of 229.174mph.

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“It was a really good day for the whole Chip Ganassi team,” said Ericsson.

“Obviously yesterday we worked a lot on the race cars, worked straight away, and then today we sort of built on that, I felt, we did some changes overnight that helped me and my feeling in the car.

“I felt really happy with my race car, and then we just did some stuff for tomorrow, some preparation for tomorrow but one run in and managed to be P1 on the no-tow as well so, very positively day and hats off to the Ganassi team – the organisation has done a tremendous job again this year with preparing four really good cars.”

While CGR had all four cars in the top seven on Day 1, Thursday saw them spread across the top nine, with Sato in seventh (227.818mph) and Alex Palou ninth (227.718mph).

👋 from pit lane@Ericsson_Marcus checks in after a P1 finish in Practice 2! pic.twitter.com/afSdRHNe1j

— Chip Ganassi Racing (@CGRTeams) May 18, 2023

Simon Pagenaud was third fastest at 228.681mph for Meyer Shank Racing, making it a Honda one-two-three on the Frenchman’s 39th birthday.

Australia’s Will Power was the highest ranked Chevrolet, his 228.577mph fourth fastest on Thursday after finishing 12th on the opening day (226.866mph).

In the reverse of Wednesday’s Team Penske order, Josef Newgarden was 20th (226.013mph) while Scott McLaughlin, who was fifth fastest on Day 1, was 25th with a 225.905mph best in what the New Zealander described as a ‘solid’ run.

Behind Power in fourth was Andretti Autosport’s Colton Herta (228.240mph) and Ed Carpenter Racing’s Conor Daly (228.215mph), before Sato and the Arrow McLaren of Pato O’Ward (227.734mph) in eighth ahead of Palou.

Alexander Rossi (227.713) was tenth fastest for Arrow McLaren, whose quartet of cars are running unique liveries to commemorate the 60th anniversary of McLaren. Rossi posted the most laps, 164, on Thursday, adding to his tally of 142 on Wednesday to lead the cumulative lap-count at 306.

Practice continues tomorrow (Friday Indianapolis time) for Fast Friday, with qualifying for the 2023 Indianapolis 500 beginning on Saturday local time.

Rank	Driver	Car No.	Best Time	In Lap	Best Speed	Total Laps	Difference	Gap
1	Marcus Ericsson	8	00:39.1974	20	229.607	87	–.—-	–.—-
2	Scott Dixon	9	00:39.2694	76	229.186	84	0.0720	0.0720
3	Simon Pagenaud	60	00:39.3562	66	228.681	104	0.1588	0.0868
4	Will Power	12	00:39.3740	71	228.577	85	0.1766	0.0178
5	Colton Herta	26	00:39.4321	80	228.240	103	0.2347	0.0581
6	Conor Daly	20	00:39.4365	31	228.215	105	0.2391	0.0044
7	Takuma Sato	11	00:39.5052	66	227.818	98	0.3078	0.0687
8	Pato O’Ward	5	00:39.5198	16	227.734	92	0.3224	0.0146
9	Alex Palou	10	00:39.5225	3	227.718	83	0.3251	0.0027
10	Alexander Rossi	7	00:39.5234	4	227.713	164	0.3260	0.0009
11	Santino Ferrucci	14	00:39.5561	48	227.525	57	0.3587	0.0327
12	Graham Rahal	15	00:39.6523	78	226.973	82	0.4549	0.0962
13	Tony Kanaan	66	00:39.6790	5	226.820	47	0.4816	0.0267
14	Kyle Kirkwood	27	00:39.7015	37	226.692	94	0.5041	0.0225
15	Agustin Canapino	78	00:39.7091	71	226.648	84	0.5117	0.0076
16	Felix Rosenqvist	6	00:39.7189	18	226.592	153	0.5215	0.0098
17	Marco Andretti	98	00:39.7239	57	226.564	74	0.5265	0.0050
18	Helio Castroneves	06	00:39.7357	99	226.497	120	0.5383	0.0118
19	Sting Ray Robb	51	00:39.7512	45	226.408	102	0.5538	0.0155
20	Josef Newgarden	2	00:39.8207	61	226.013	90	0.6233	0.0695
21	Jack Harvey	30	00:39.8281	55	225.971	86	0.6307	0.0074
22	Ryan Hunter-Reay	23	00:39.8317	23	225.951	54	0.6343	0.0036
23	David Malukas	18	00:39.8340	107	225.938	164	0.6366	0.0023
24	Scott McLaughlin	3	00:39.8398	84	225.905	105	0.6424	0.0058
25	Romain Grosjean	28	00:39.8433	55	225.885	123	0.6459	0.0035
26	Benjamin Pedersen	55	00:39.9234	60	225.432	63	0.7260	0.0801
27	Christian Lundgaard	45	00:39.9698	83	225.170	89	0.7724	0.0464
28	RC Enerson	50	00:39.9801	63	225.112	68	0.7827	0.0103
29	Devlin DeFrancesco	29	00:39.9913	14	225.049	52	0.7939	0.0112
30	Rinus VeeKay	21	00:39.9950	81	225.028	128	0.7976	0.0037
31	Ed Carpenter	33	00:40.0167	13	224.906	112	0.8193	0.0217
32	Callum Ilott	77	00:40.0486	4	224.727	71	0.8512	0.0319
33	Stefan Wilson	24	00:40.0582	25	224.673	53	0.8608	0.0096
34	Katherine Legge	44	00:40.1905	46	223.934	83	0.9931	0.1323