Power fastest, Wilson hospitalised after Indy 500 Monday Practice

Will Power has posted the fastest time in Practice 8 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway while Stefan Wilson has been hospitalised following the first major incident during for this year’s 33-car Indy 500 field.

The Australian Team Penske driver ended Practice 8 with a 229.222mph lap and time of 39.2633s.

In qualifying Power landed a 232.635mph four-lap average and with a 38.6922 on the first of those four laps to qualify 12th for this year’s Indy 500, ahead of Penske team-mates Scott McLaughlin (14th) and Josef Newgarden (17th).

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Practice 8 saw slower times as teams worked on race set-ups for the 500-mile event.

“We’ve been having vibration problems,” Power said. “I think we got somewhat on top of that. Ran at the front, ran at the middle, ran at the back, and I think the car’s pretty good. I think we’re in a good spot. We have good horsepower. I think we’re in good shape.”

Power also covered the second-most distance during the two-hour-and ten-minute session, lapping the 2.5-mile oval 88 times, with only Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Christian Lundgaard ahead of him on 90 laps.

Behind Power, Chip Ganassi Racing – who took pole with Alex Palou on Sunday and topped every session bar one in the lead up to qualifying – filled the next three positions, with Scott Dixon second-fastest (229.184mph), Takuma Sato third (228.382mph) and pole-sitter Palou fourth (227.392mph).

Last year’s Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson (225.688mph) was 13th in the fourth CGR entry, behind McLaughlin (225.787mph).

An incident between Katherine Legge and Stefan Wilson 71 minutes into the session was the first major collision of this year’s running at The Brickyard.

The two cars contacted which saw Wilson’s head nose-first into the Turn 1 barrier, with Legge’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan spinning backwards into the Turn 1 wall before sliding along the track before a secondary impact into the wall at Turn 2.

Legge climbed from the #44 entry unassisted, while Wilson was transferred to the medical centre for further checks before being taken to the nearby IU Health Methodist Hospital.

UPDATE: Wilson ruled out of 2023 Indy 500 with broken vertebrae.

Rank	Driver	Car No.	Best Time	In Lap	Best Speed	Total Laps	Difference	Gap
1	Will Power	12	00:39.2633	58	229.222	88	–.—-	–.—-
2	Scott Dixon	9	00:39.2698	2	229.184	67	0.0065	0.0065
3	Takuma Sato	11	00:39.4076	35	228.382	58	0.1443	0.1378
4	Alex Palou	10	00:39.5793	7	227.392	53	0.3160	0.1717
5	Tony Kanaan	66	00:39.6311	34	227.094	50	0.3678	0.0518
6	Conor Daly	20	00:39.6314	34	227.093	57	0.3681	0.0003
7	Marco Andretti	98	00:39.7120	19	226.632	53	0.4487	0.0806
8	Benjamin Pedersen	55	00:39.7699	12	226.302	53	0.5066	0.0579
9	Pato O’Ward	5	00:39.7768	2	226.263	66	0.5135	0.0069
10	Colton Herta	26	00:39.8330	18	225.943	61	0.5697	0.0562
11	Ryan Hunter-Reay	23	00:39.8481	6	225.858	66	0.5848	0.0151
12	Scott McLaughlin	3	00:39.8605	51	225.787	77	0.5972	0.0124
13	Marcus Ericsson	8	00:39.8781	42	225.688	65	0.6148	0.0176
14	Kyle Kirkwood	27	00:39.9283	61	225.404	66	0.6650	0.0502
15	Ed Carpenter	33	00:39.9387	2	225.345	44	0.6754	0.0104
16	Agustin Canapino	78	00:39.9527	30	225.266	75	0.6894	0.0140
17	Christian Lundgaard	45	00:39.9701	66	225.168	90	0.7068	0.0174
18	David Malukas	18	00:39.9943	4	225.032	25	0.7310	0.0242
19	Simon Pagenaud	60	00:40.0028	8	224.984	65	0.7395	0.0085
20	Alexander Rossi	7	00:40.0046	17	224.974	82	0.7413	0.0018
21	Sting Ray Robb	51	00:40.0504	10	224.717	60	0.7871	0.0458
22	Romain Grosjean	28	00:40.0774	35	224.565	60	0.8141	0.0270
23	Stefan Wilson	24	00:40.1228	6	224.311	57	0.8595	0.0454
24	Josef Newgarden	2	00:40.1255	42	224.296	81	0.8622	0.0027
25	RC Enerson	50	00:40.1274	48	224.286	61	0.8641	0.0019
26	Jack Harvey	30	00:40.1947	45	223.910	50	0.9314	0.0673
27	Helio Castroneves	06	00:40.2055	27	223.850	63	0.9422	0.0108
28	Devlin DeFrancesco	29	00:40.2804	41	223.434	70	1.0171	0.0749
29	Katherine Legge	44	00:40.3554	7	223.018	35	1.0921	0.0750
30	Felix Rosenqvist	6	00:40.3592	25	222.997	67	1.0959	0.0038
31	Santino Ferrucci	14	00:40.3827	3	222.868	60	1.1194	0.0235
32	Callum Ilott	77	00:40.5426	39	221.989	53	1.2793	0.1599
33	Rinus VeeKay	21	00:41.0187	16	219.412	27	1.7554	0.4761

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