Marco Andretti and Alex Lloyd bumped their way into the 100th Anniversary Indianapolis 500 with dramatic qualifying runs in the final 10 minutes of Bump Day qualifying at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The two were among 14 drivers seeking to secure one of the nine spots on the 33-car grid in a six-hour session interrupted twice by rain.
With 75 minutes left, Danica Patrick put the No. 7 Team GoDaddy car solidly in the field with a four-lap average of 224.861 mph. But that left teammate Andretti on the bubble while Ryan Hunter-Reay sat 32nd.
Eight drivers failed to gather the necessary consistent speed to force Andretti to re-qualify until Lloyd of Dale Coyne Racing, who finished fourth in the Indy 500 last May, put together an average speed of 223.917 mph. Teammate James Jakes sought to knock Hunter-Reay out, too, but his attempt was waved off after two laps.
That left Andretti as the final contestant. As the gun went off to end the session, so did Andretti on his qualifying attempt. Three minutes later, and with an average speed of 224.628 mph, he jumped to the inside of Row 10. That left his teammate and close friend on the outside for the May 29 race.
The fourth Andretti Autosport driver, Mike Conway, who recovered from a season-ending crash in last year’s Indianapolis 500 to win at Long Beach in mid-April also was among the entrants who failed to find the consistent speed.
Also not making the show were Raphael Matos, Sebastian Saavedra and Jakes. Dragon Racing’s Ho-Pin Tung and Scott Speed did not complete qualifying attempts.
Lloyd is joined on the last row by rookie Pippa Mann of Conquest Racing and Ana Beatriz of Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. Andretti will start on Row 10 with rookie Charlie Kimball and Graham Rahal, while Paul Tracy will share Row 9 with Patrick and Ryan Briscoe.
This is the closest matched field by time in Indianapolis 500 history—2.5399 seconds separate fastest qualifier Alex Tagliani and slowest qualifier Beatriz. The record was 3.0622 seconds set in 2010.
Results of qualifying Sunday for the 100th Anniversary Indianapolis 500 IZOD IndyCar Series event on the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with Rank, car number in parentheses, driver, chassis-engine, time and speed in parentheses:
1. (77) Alex Tagliani, Dallara-Honda, 02:38.2613 (227.472)
2. (9) Scott Dixon, Dallara-Honda, 02:38.3528 (227.340)
3. (2) Oriol Servia, Dallara-Honda, 02:38.4727 (227.168)
4. (99) Townsend Bell, Dallara-Honda, 02:38.6696 (226.887)
5. (12) Will Power, Dallara-Honda, 02:38.7493 (226.773)
6. (98) Dan Wheldon, Dallara-Honda, 02:38.9477 (226.171)
7. (44) Buddy Rice, Dallara-Honda, 02:39.4431 (225.786)
8. (67) Ed Carpenter, Dallara-Honda, 02:39.9137 (225.121)
9. (10) Dario Franchitti, Dallara-Honda, 02:39.0253 (226.379)
10. (5) Takuma Sato, Dallara-Honda, 02:39.4785 (225.736)
11. (14) Vitor Meira, Dallara-Honda, 02:39.5814 (225.590)
12. (4) JR Hildebrand, Dallara-Honda, 02:39.5895 (225.579)
13. (06) James Hinchcliffe, Dallara-Honda, 02:39.5942 (225.572)
14. (30) Bertrand Baguette, Dallara-Honda, 02:39.7973 (225.285)
15. (11) Davey Hamilton, Dallara-Honda, 02:39.8223 (225.250)
16. (3) Helio Castroneves, Dallara-Honda, 02:39.8464 (225.216)
17. (43) John Andretti, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.0133 (224.981)
18. (59) EJ Viso, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.1907 (224.732)
19. (41) Bruno Junqueira, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.2203 (224.691)
20. (22) Justin Wilson, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.3488 (224.511)
21. (88) Jay Howard, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.3685 (224.483)
22. (07) Tomas Scheckter, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.4040 (224.433)
23. (82) Tony Kanaan, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.4156 (224.417)
24. (78T) Simona de Silvestro, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.4335 (224.392)
25. (23) Paul Tracy, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.0433 (224.939)
26. (7) Danica Patrick, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.0987 (224.861)
27. (6T) Ryan Briscoe, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.2572 (224.639)
28. (26) Marco Andretti, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.2648 (224.628)
29. (83) Charlie Kimball, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.3574 (224.499)
30. (38) Graham Rahal, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.4424 (224.380)
31. (19) Alex Lloyd, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.7451 (223.957)
32. (36) Pippa Mann, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.7600 (223.936)
33. (24) Ana Beatriz, Dallara-Honda, 02:40.8012 (223.879)
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