Noblesville’s Conor Daly had by far his best-ever qualifying run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday, and was rewarded with his highest-ever place on the starting grid.
Daly qualified 11th for the Indianapolis 500. Daly ran the first qualifying attempt of the day, clocking in at 227.921 mph. But he ran a second attempt later that afternoon, which proved to be a good decision: Daly’s second qualifying run was 228.617, good enough to move him to 11th, where he remained for the rest of the day.
“It was a rollercoaster of a day and we only did two runs,” said Daly. “It was wild. I am over the moon. I didn’t really know what to expect, but to be .1 mph off of the Fast Nine and starting on the fourth row in 11th is super cool. I think the team did an awesome job after our first run. We just missed the setup a little bit, but we made the perfect adjustments for the second run. We timed it perfectly too because the (qualifying) line started getting stacked up and we made the right call. Credit to Michael (Andretti, team owner/strategist), Andy (Listes, engineer), TZ (John Tzouanakis, Assistant Strategist) and all of the U.S. Air Force guys. It is a lot of fun to be a part of this team and it’s only getting better every single day.”
This will be Daly’s sixth start in the 500. His rookie year was in 2013, and he has qualified every year since 2015.
Conor Daly qualified 11th for this year’s Indianapolis 500. Daly made two qualifying runs on Saturday, with his second run of 228.617 fast enough to get him into the middle of the fourth row. (Kent Graham)