6 Drivers Take to Track at Indy. Bernoldi Passes ROP. Hamilton, Junqueira, Papis Run “refresher laps”
By Martha Meacham

Today was another busy day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as sixteen drivers, rookies and veterans took to the track under sunny skies to get in as many laps as they could in preparation for the 92nd running of the Indianapolis 500. The last ROP practice ran from noon-5 pm, with the drivers running a total of 655 laps. There was one incident today: The No. 34 Conquest Racing car driven by rookie Jaime Camara made contact with the Turn 1 SAFER barrier early in the session. Camara was taken to Methodist Hospital, complaining of back pains and will be evaluated to determine his fitness to drive.

Alex Lloyd, running for Rahal Letterman Racing, set the fastest time today. He topped the charts late in the session with a time/speed of 40.3528 seconds/223.033 mph. "I was able to gradually take a little bit of downforce out of the car, which is the key," said Lloyd, the 2007 Indy Pro Series champion who will attempt to make his IndyCar Series debut in the 500. "I've been doing that nice and gently over the next couple of days. It's obviously my first time in an IndyCar on an oval, so we're going to be giving the track a lot of respect and taking our time with it."

Running in second was Hideki Mutoh of AGR with a speed of 222.600. Will Power of KVRT, who topped the charts yesterday, again showed he had “power” around IMS. His fastest speed was 222.267 mph. Enrique Bernoldi (Conquest Racing) completed his ROP today. Mario Moraes of Dale Coyne Racing completed the first 3 phases of the ROP and was working on his fourth phase, setting a fast lap of 215.616 mph.

Mario Dominguez of Pacific Coast Motorsports took to the track for the first time today and also completed the first 3 phases of the ROP. "I can't believe that I ran my first laps around this amazing track," said Dominguez. "This is an absolute dream come true for me. I have to give credit to my crew for getting this together in such a short period of time. Despite some issues, we still made it out there and we were able to pass three phases of the rookie test. We only managed to run two hours and it was our first two hours ever running this car, but we accomplished a lot and I am relieved. Now we can turn our focus to making the car better and I look forward to that."

It was not just a day for the rookies. As anticipated, 2002 Indy 500 pole sitter Bruno Junqueira made his first appearance at IMS during the ROP since his harrowing accident in 2005.  He received track time as a "transition" driver from Champ Car, though he wasn't categorized as a rookie OR a refresher participant. Junqueira, who is running for DCR, ran 26 “refresher laps” and didn't take long to get back up to speed. The veteran Brazilian's top speed was 220.289 mph. "It's great to be back at Indy," said Junqueira. "If we would have gone out yesterday, we would have been P1 with the time we ran today. So I am very happy with the car's performance on its first time out. I have had some great results here at Indy and would like nothing more than to give Dale Coyne Racing and Z-Line Designs a podium finish."

Davey Hamilton who is piloting a third car for Vision Racing and Rubicon Race Team's Max Papis completed their refresher courses today.

Practice for all teams begins tomorrow at noon and runs until 6:00 pm, EDT. 2nd day ROP runs and practice will begin at noon, EDT, and will be covered in running recap fashion, along with Sunday's results, charts and photos here...   There is also an updated entry list. Here's some additional pictures...

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Speeds increase as ROP winds down and 12 drivers post speeds fast enough to have made the 2007 Indy 500 field...
12 drivers of 16 yesterday ran at least one lap that was better than the 218.922-mph bump speed of Marty Roth last year. While I'll grant you that these weren't single-car, four lap runs made today at IMS, but I'll remind everyone that except for the fastest driver on the day, fast speeds on day-two of ROP don't pay a dime. Hopefully though, these drivers will find more speed later in the week, and learn to put four laps together as well. For the most part there wasn't that much traffic today, so most of the speeds weren't tow related. Also, nine of these drivers above 219.5 were "rookies," only Davey Hamilton, Max Papis and Bruno Junqueira, running refresher tests, are veteran Indy 500 drivers.

I am getting conflicting information on who passed ROP today or what phase they are in. One news service claimed Mario Moraes had passed his rookie test as early as 3:30 Indy time, but his T&S speed at the time was 212-mph. Here's an excerpt from the official IndyCar news release

"Enrique Bernoldi became the 11th driver to pass the Indianapolis 500 Rookie Orientation Program on the second and final day devoted to newcomers at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Fellow rookies Mario Dominguez and Mario Moraes completed three of the four phases of ROP and may complete the final phase later in the month." " Also on Monday, veterans Davey Hamilton and Max Papis completed refresher tests."

Bruno Junqueira was allowed to run as a "transitional driver" but was not required to meet any speed parameters.

Pos

Driver

Best Time

Best Speed

Best Lap

Last Lap

1

Alex Lloyd (16)

40.3528

223.033

42

51

2

Hideki Mutoh (27)

40.4313

222.600

31

35

3

Will Power (8)

40.4918

222.267

50

61

4

Oriol Servia (5)

40.5243

222.089

44

52

5

Graham Rahal (06)

40.6954

221.155

41

45

6

Justin Wilson (02)

40.7187

221.029

26

34

7

Ryan Hunter-Reay (17T)

40.7537

220.839

53

59

8

Enrique Bernoldi (36T)

40.8507

220.314

48

48

9

Bruno Junqueira (18)

40.8555

220.289

26

26

10

Davey Hamilton (22)

40.9276

219.901

36

38

11

EJ Viso (33)

40.9915

219.558

27

33

12

Max Papis (44)

41.0770

219.101

13

22

13

Jaime Camara (34)

41.2345

218.264

4

4

14

Mario Moraes (19)

41.7409

215.616

62

68

15

Jay Howard (24T)

41.9390

214.597

10

31

16

Mario Dominguez (96)

41.9858

214.358

45

48
Here is a 4:30 chart, but it is all but meaningless, because speeds are increasing by the lap. Now that Indiana is on daylight savings time there is no true happy hour, so the last half-hour of practice is as good as it gets.

Pos

Driver

Best Time

Best Speed

Best Lap

Last Lap

1

Will Power (8)

40.4918

222.267

50

55

2

Alex Lloyd (16)

40.5764

221.804

32

35

3

Hideki Mutoh (27)

40.6661

221.315

16

27

4

Justin Wilson (02)

40.7410

220.908

12

22

5

Oriol Servia (5)

40.8160

220.502

31

37

6

Graham Rahal (06)

40.8865

220.122

24

29

7

Ryan Hunter-Reay (17T)

40.9010

220.044

46

47

8

Enrique Bernoldi (36T)

41.0659

219.160

25

33

9

Max Papis (44)

41.0770

219.101

13

14

10

EJ Viso (33)

41.1467

218.730

10

17

11

Jaime Camara (34)

41.2345

218.264

4

4

12

Davey Hamilton (22)

41.3599

217.602

10

24

13

Bruno Junqueira (18)

41.4295

217.237

4

13

14

Jay Howard (24T)

41.9390

214.597

10

25

15

Mario Moraes (19)

42.3997

212.266

36

54

16

Mario Dominguez (96)

43.5795

206.519

24

27
Three "rookies" and perhaps a surprise or two must finish ROP runs today at IMS...

Ryan Hunter-Reay in the Rahal Letterman Racing #17T.

That's Hideki Mutoh going by in turn one as Jay Howard leaves the pits. I would like to thank Matt Golden of Indy for the help with the pictures today.

The Max Papis car...

Justin Wilson's "McRacer...

Here she is...

The Sonny's Car, and driver Mario Moraes...

This is the Alex Lloyd RLR/Ganassi car partially undressed. There is a lot of speculation as to the origin of this car, from which "camp?" My guess is that it is a Ganassi car.
 

(3:00 p.m. EDT) I'm back, sometimes you have to work, even in May. The 3:00 chart shows some good speed, in the half hour I have been playing with my graphics there have been a few changes, but nothing very significant. The only other "incident" since the Camara contact was Mario Moraes getting a black flag. That is usually the case of one of the observers seeing something needing immediate "adjusting," so they bring the driver in, "adjust" him and return him to the track.

Pos

Driver

Best Time

 Best Speed

Best Lap

Last Lap

1

Will Power (8)

40.5471

221.964

25

32

2

Hideki Mutoh (27)

40.6661

221.315

16

17

3

Alex Lloyd (16)

40.7303

220.966

11

17

4

Oriol Servia (5)

40.8815

220.148

22

25

5

Ryan Hunter-Reay (17T)

40.9880

219.576

35

35

6

Graham Rahal (06)

41.0105

219.456

9

20

7

Enrique Bernoldi (36T)

41.0659