INDIANAPOLIS – Tony Kanaan has been racing around Indianapolis Motor Speedway every year since 2002. After 11 tries, Kanaan won the 2013 Indianapolis 500 driving car No. 11 for KV Racing.
What Kanaan witnessed during this past weekend’s qualifications for the 103rd Indianapolis 500 was as thrilling and as nerve-racking an experienced as he can ever remember.
And, he wasn’t even involved in either the “Last Row Shootout” or the “Fast Nine Shootout” -- Kanaan was already safely qualified into the 33-car starting lineup on Saturday and will start 16th in Sunday’s 103rd Indianapolis 500 in the No. 14 Chevrolet for AJ Foyt Racing. The race will air live on NBC at 11 a.m. and on the Advance Auto Parts Radio Network.
“I liked everything about the way qualifying went, the way the organized qualifying,” Kanaan said Monday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “I always felt like last year, I qualified in the top 12 in the first day, but I wasn't in the show. I went to sleep and I'm like, ‘I've got to do it again.’
“For me, in my opinion, this was a pretty good move.”
INDYCAR president Jay Frye changed the qualification format for this year’s Indy 500. Instead of every driver qualifying on Saturday, with bumping on the first day of qualifications, then having to come out and requalify for position on Sunday, he came up with a better idea.
This year, Saturday’s qualifications still determined the “Fast Nine” that would fight it out for the pole the following day. Positions 10-30 were then “locked in” to their starting position based off the first day of qualifications and did not have to return to the track.
At the bottom of the field, cars that did not make the top 30 would have one last chance to make up for any problems they incurred on the first day with a “Last Row Shootout” for the final three starting positions.
This year, there were six cars fighting for the final three positions in the field and it turned out to be a stunner.
Teams that overcame adversity and became the success stories of the month included James Hinchcliffe, who crashed on his Saturday qualification attempt. The other two drivers were tremendous stories, too, with Sage Karam overcoming issues with his own confidence level and running the best four laps of his month at Indy. The final driver to make the field was Kyle Kaiser of Juncos Racing.
After crashing on Friday, Juncos worked 48-straight hours to prepare a car capable of making the field.
The drivers that missed the race in the “Last Row Shootout” included two of the three Carlin entries – those driven by Max Chilton and rookie Patricio O’Ward.
The last driver bumped from the field was two-time Formula One World Champion Fernando Alonso and McLaren.
It was the “Bump heard around the World.”
Kanaan believes Sunday was another defining moment in the history of Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was another perfect example of the drama this place creates, just to make the field for the Indianapolis 500.
“Last year I don't think anybody saw that coming when Hinch didn't qualify,” Kanaan told NTT INDYCAR Mobile. “But I think it had been a while since I was here that we hadn't had a day like that.
“It was nerve-racking for me just watching. You have friends that are in and friends that are not in, and it's one of those things that unfortunately you can't make everybody to qualify.
“If you love racing, if you know this place, that proves to you again that this place is what it is because it's so unpredictable. Nobody is safe ever. It doesn't matter what you're racing for. It doesn't matter what -- for some reason, something always happens here, which is quite interesting.
“I was more nervous yesterday than I was when I qualified the day before.”