NASCAR star Kyle Larson aborted his first qualifying attempt for the Indianapolis 500 on Saturday but found the speed on his second try, averaging 232.563 mph on his four-lap run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Meanwhile, Rinus VeeKay‘s already challenging season took another twist when a hard crash left him limping down the front straightaway, hopeful he could get back on the 2.5-mile oval before the first round of qualifying ends.
Larson was the sixth of 34 cars to qualify and was on pace to set a time that would have put him near the front of the 33-car grid when he heard what sounded like a miss in the engine of his Arrow McLaren. Larson played it safe, shut the car down and headed in to have everything checked out.
“There was some alarm that popped up on the dash, and it just cut power,” said Larson, who is trying to qualify for the May 26 race and become the first driver since Tony Stewart in 2001 to complete the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day.
Brian Campe, the technical director for Hendrick Motorsports who is working with Arrow McLaren to field the No. 17 car, said an examination of Larson’s engine found no serious problems.
When Larson went back out, he posted the sixth-fastest qualifying run of the day, giving himself a chance to make the top 12 and advance to the pole shootout Sunday.
“I’ll definitely take that,” Larson said. “Hopefully it’s enough to make it to the fast 12 tomorrow; that’d be pretty cool. But happy with it, the balance of the car. Proud of the team for not all of us freaking out.”
Larson wasn’t the only Arrow McLaren driver to have some problems on the first day of qualifying. Callum Ilott, whose 231.995 mph run had put him in the top 10, had his time thrown out when a postrun technical inspection discovered a problem with the left rear wheel offset. Pato O’Ward had a similar issue as Larson on his first attempt of the day.
The Team Penske cars of Will Power, Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden were the three fastest through the first runs of Saturday’s qualifying session.
VeeKay was set to qualify early in the day when his car wiggled going through the third turn at more than 238 mph then spun hard into the wall, bounced off and skidded down the chute between Turns 3 and 4 before hitting the wall again in Turn 4 and coming to a stop in the front straightaway.
“I had had a bit of understeer on the previous lap and made a little adjustment. Somehow I had a huge moment really late. I don’t really understand how that happened,” VeeKay said. “I feel terrible for the guys. They spend months — or a year or two — getting this car ready, and now we’ve taken a huge step backward.”
VeeKay, 23, went to the infield medical care center, where he was checked, released and cleared to drive.
The Dutch driver traditionally has performed well on both the track’s historic Brickyard and the 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course. But VeeKay, who is in the final year of his contract with Ed Carpenter Racing, finished 26th in last weekend’s Indianapolis Grand Prix and now faces a long road back to making his fifth straight pole shootout as the team scrambles to repair his No. 21 Chevrolet.
“I think we’ll be fine getting into the field,” he said. “We should have just been able to do it with one run and done, but it’s just a bummer. We shouldn’t have to go through this.”
Along with the pole shootout Sunday, the four slowest cars will compete for the final three spots on the starting grid.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.