Indianapolis 500 Practice Day 4

The pit lane was clear and Gasoline Alley quiet, Wednesday, when the clock struck twelve for the fourth day of Indianapolis 500 practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Since the stoppage of practice at 1:30 yesterday, Mother Nature has been relentless with nearly non-stop precipitation throughout the night and most of today. The rain eventually stopped, however, and the track went green for the first time at 5pm. Due to the delay, INDYCAR also announced that the session had been extended until 7pm.

Just 4-minutes after a quick 11-minute yellow for a cut tire track inspection, with the cool conditions and a tow Simon Pagenaud posted the quickest speed of the month at 226.122mph.

Just 15-minutes later the track would return to yellow for the first incident of the month. Rookie Jack Hawksworth, who led most laps in Saturday's Grand Prix of Indianapolis, made a 180 degree spin in Turn 3 making contact with the SAFER Barrier. The No. 98 continued through the short chute before coming to a rest in the grass near the inside wall.

Hawksworth was checked and released from the infield medical center and cleared to drive.
“I have no idea what happened to be honest," said Hawksworth. "We just went into 3 and it just snapped, so we’ll have to look into it. I don’t know if it’s – honestly, I wouldn’t want to comment just yet because I have no idea. Suddenly it just snapped.”

The track would return to green flag action for a short period before rain returned to 16th and Georgetown ending the day at 6:29.

With 1,044 laps turned

1 - Pagenaud, Simon 226.122mph
2 - Hildebrand, JR 225.854mph
3 - Dixon, Scott 225.494mph
4 - Castroneves, Helio 225.340mph
5 - Aleshin, Mikhail 225.310mph
6 - Briscoe, Ryan 225.276mph
7 - Montoya, Juan Pablo 225.134mph
8 - Hunter-Reay, Ryan 225.110mph
9 - Wilson, Justin 225.058mph
10 - Newgarden, Josef 224.948mph
11 - Kanaan, Tony 224.752mph
12 - Viso, EJ 224.731mph
13 - Kimball, Charlie 224.544mph
14 - Carpenter, Ed 224.492mph
15 - Tagliani, Alex 224.384mph
16 - Andretti, Marco 224.370mph
17 - Bourdais, Sebastien 224.307mph
18 - Hawksworth, Jack 224.000mph
19 - Mann, Pippa 223.984mph
20 - Munoz, Carlos 223.754mph
21 - Huertas, Carlos 223.651mph
22 - Sato, Takuma 223.329mph
23 - Saavedra, Sebastian 223.181mph
24 - Servia, Oriol 222.780mph
25 - Rahal, Graham 222.152mph
26 - Karam, Sage 222.096mph
27 - Villeneuve, Jacques 221.682mph
28 - Plowman, Martin 221.013mph
29 - Power, Will 175.729mph

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