Indianapolis 500 Practice: Dario Franchitti leads Wednesday session

Dario Franchitti effectively ended the stranglehold Andretti Autosport and Chevrolet had on Indianapolis 500 practice on Wednesday afternoon at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Target Ganassi driver set the fastest lap of the afternoon with a 40.136 second lap at 224.235 mph with 27 minutes remaining in the day’s six-hour session. It was the first real sign of the month that Honda could repeat as winner of the race - an under-the-radar approach they employed last year too.

Many experts and observers were down on Honda last year based on practice times and they finished 1-2 with both Target Ganassi cars at the end of that race. Thus Franchitti again warned that speeds were not to be taken seriously this early in the month.

“It doesn’t really count for much, but it’s nice, nonetheless,” Franchitti said. “Right now we’re still very much in the preparation stage. We’re making changes to the car, and sometimes doing one- and two-lap runs. I think we had a pretty tough morning there and made some big changes to the Target car in the afternoon.”

Franchitti got a taste of things to come late in the session when he got on the Speedway with the Andretti Autosport cars and his Ganassi teammates - Scott Dixon, Ryan Briscoe and Charlie Kimball. These are some of the drivers most-expected to compete for the win and Franchitti was mostly pleased with how the car handled in traffic.

“The lap time came from being in the right place at the right time,” Franchitti said. “It was a bit like everybody out there: It was when you got the tow and how big the tow was. So for us, it was more important that the car was balanced and how the car is in traffic and stuff, and we’re getting there with that.

“We still got a little work to do, but we’re closer than we have been.”

Townsend Bell, in his second day of full on-track activity, climbed to second (223.716 mph; 40.2295 seconds) with three-time 500 race-winner Helio Castroneves amongst the fastest again (223.699 mph) in his Penske Chevrolet.

Marco Andretti (221.419 mph and Andretti teammate E.J. Viso (220.305 mph) recorded the fastest non-tow (draft) laps earlier in the session.

Overall 32 car/driver combinations hit the track and recorded times during the session. The complete speeds from Tuesday’s practice session can be found below (duplicates represent T-cars - team backups):