Indianapolis 500: Ryan Briscoe Tops Frenetic Practice Day
May 15, 2008
Ron McQueeney
INDIANAPOLIS– Ryan Briscoe paced a frenetic practice day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as 35 cars combined to turn 2,628 laps in preparation for the 92nd Running of the Indianapolis 500.
Thursday’s session was the first significant practice time since. Rain washed out all activity on May 11, including Second Day Qualifying, and limited green flag time to 30 minutes on May 14. The track was closed May 12-13.
Briscoe, who qualified third in the No. 6 Team Penske machine May 10, lapped the 2.5-mile oval in 40.2311 seconds, 223.708 mph. His teammate, Helio Castroneves, was second-fastest at 223.284 mph, and pole sitter Scott Dixon was third (223.192 mph).
Among the 24 drivers who have not yet qualified for the 22 remaining starting positions, Will Power topped the chart (sixth overall). Power’s best lap was 222.657 mph.
With an uncertain forecast for the scheduled six-hour practice, teams wasted no time getting in their work. Twenty-six cars were on track within the first 10 minutes of the green flag. A light rain began falling late in the afternoon, ending practice 18 minutes early.
Ryan Briscoe (No. 6 Team Penske): “Tomorrow might be different, and we may run just as much (downforce), so we might have to change the car. We’ll see what it looks like on Race Day and try to put to use what we have learned over these couple of days.” (On dealing with traffic today): “As Will (Power) mentioned, a lot of those guys are probably already doing race preparation and not running all the time in qualifying setup in short runs. We also want to be careful around the guys that aren’t qualified because you never know, and they might be doing a low-fuel run and could run out of fuel in a corner. I think when we started really running close, I was probably looking more for the guys who were already qualified, but still we were able to run pretty confidently with the guys who weren’t qualified.”
