What did Friday's 2012 Carb Day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway teach us? Well, probably not much. As the fastest driver, Dario Franchitti, put it: "It's only practice, isn't it?"
But perhaps the Honda-powered cars showed one thing: They might not be so far off after all.
Franchitti and Scott Dixon – who both run Target Chip Ganassi Racing Hondas – led the Indy 500's final practice on Friday afternoon and momentarily alleviated concerns that the team was in for a bad race on Sunday.
On the other hand, it's unclear how much the Chevy-powered cars really showed. After sweeping the top six spots in qualifying, it seemed the Chevrolet teams – namely Penske Racing and Andretti Autosport – would poised dominate this year's 500.
All along, though, Franchitti and team owner Chip Ganassi insisted they were going to be "OK" in race trim. Judging by Friday's hour-long practice, it appears they may have been right.
"We'll find out on Sunday, but it definitely feels a little bit stronger," Franchitti said. "So hopefully that will give us more of an equal fight, because obviously in qualifying it was a bit one-sided."
So what does Friday's practice really mean for Race Day? It's hard to say.
"The goal this session isn't to be the quickest," said Marco Andretti, who was third-fastest. "It's just to get the car beneath you."
Here are the results from Carb Day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway:
- Dario Franchitti (Honda)
- Scott Dixon (Honda)
- Marco Andretti (Chevrolet)
- Takuma Sato (Honda)
- Ryan Briscoe (Chevrolet)
- Justin Wilson (Honda)
- Will Power (Chevrolet)
- James Hinchcliffe (Chevrolet)
- Tony Kanaan (Chevrolet)
- Ryan Hunter-Reay (Chevrolet)
- Helio Castroneves (Chevrolet)
- J.R. Hildebrand (Chevrolet)
- Josef Newgarden (Honda)
- Charlie Kimball (Honda)
- Graham Rahal (Honda)
- Alex Tagliani (Honda)
- Rubens Barrichello (Chevrolet)
- Oriol Servia (Chevrolet)
- Mike Conway (Honda)
- Ed Carpenter (Chevrolet)
- Sebastian Saavedra (Chevrolet)
- EJ Viso (Chevrolet)
- Simon Pagenaud (Honda)
- Bryan Clauson (Honda)
- Sebastien Bourdais (Chevrolet)
- Katherine Legge (Chevrolet)
- Wade Cunningham (Honda)
- Michel Jourdain (Honda)
- Townsend Bell (Honda)
- James Jakes (Honda)
- Simona de Silvestro (Lotus)
- Jean Alesi (Lotus)
