Indy 500 Open Test canceled on second day because of rain at the Brickyard

The second day of the Indy 500 Open Test was canceled Friday morning because of rain.

After getting on track from 10 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. Thursday (with a 45-minute interruption for a shower), the 33 teams were expected to hit Indianapolis Motor Speedway at 10 a.m. Friday.

But with persistent rain falling Friday morning and a forecast for wet weather until mid-afternoon, the Indy 500 Open Test was canceled for the second day at 9:15 a.m. ET.

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Anticipating the inclement weather Friday, 90 minutes already had been added to the Thursday schedule.

Drivers made 3,522 total laps around the 2.5-mile oval Thursday while testing a new aero package that is designed to increase raceability and passing in traffic.

Due to rain showers moving through the Indianapolis area, Day Two of the #INDYCAR Indy 500 Open Test at @IMS has been canceled, concluding the test. pic.twitter.com/ZhOQ1vVhjt

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) April 21, 2023

Josef Newgarden, who is seeking his first Indy 500 win in his 12th start, turned the fastest lap at 227.686 mph in his No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet

“I was just really happy that we went through some of the new aerodynamic parts, kind of put the car in sort of a rough guess for what we thought was going to be optimized as far as the setup,” said the Team Penske driver, who made 115 laps. “I felt like for the first look, I was really happy. Sometimes you assess kind of everything globally speaking from last year. Let’s try to put our best guess on what we think are the main hitters that are going to be solid for this year.

“We somewhat did that holistically on the race car. I thought it just worked really, really well right out of the box. That was probably the