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‘Boring and frustrating’: Kyle Larson forced to cope with tough early Indy 500 practice days

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6 months ago

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‘Boring and frustrating’: Kyle Larson forced to cope with tough early Indy 500 practice days

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INDIANAPOLIS – Tony Kanaan has been here 22 times as a driver. He knows the unpredictability of spring weather in central Indiana and the all-consuming frustration it can bring. He knows full well that an eight-hour practice can quickly turn into only three or four hours on pitlane and a few dozen laps.

It’s why Kanaan is such a perfect mentor for Kyle Larson, the latest ‘Double’ challenger who’s used to winning in virtually any car he steps into and who just might actually have the chops to win his maiden Indianapolis 500.

And three days into his first 500 practice week, it’s evident that Larson’s frustrations on a lack of track time, thanks to rain, an engine change and a poor roll of the dice on mapping out a run plan for Thursday, have bubbled to the surface. In what could’ve been as much as 19 hours of open track when the this week’s practice schedule first came out, Larson has logged just 85 laps through three days of 500 practice.

Larson and the No. 17 Arrow McLaren Chevy crew turned just 29 laps Thursday, when sprinkles only rarely put pauses on track time, failing to meet the 2021 NASCAR Cup champion’s expectations.

“I thought the weather was going to be good and we’d get in a lot of laps today, and everyone has been turning laps except for me,” Larson said from pitlane after having run just 11 laps through five hours of Thursday’s eight-hour 500 practice. At the time, Larson’s best lap from that morning ranked dead-last among the 34-car field. “It’s been a bit boring and frustrating.

“I just honestly want to get out there and make some laps and kill some time. I just keep going back to my motorhome to relax and lay on the couch and just wait. These days are so long, but hopefully everything becomes more ‘as scheduled’ for us and our team, and we can actually get to work and get to learning stuff and allow me to learn more, too.”

Minutes after Larson finished the day 25th on the timing charts (22.805 mph) on the eve of a Fast Friday that could be plagued by rain, IndyStar asked Kanaan, Arrow McLaren’s sporting director, about Larson’s ever-present frustrations that shone through in his interview on Peacock that afternoon, immediately before the driver went and turned 11 more laps, lifting himself from the bottom of the timing charts.

Seeing and hearing Larson seething hours prior had been the least surprising part of his day, Kanaan said – having weathered watching the No. 17 crew execute a morning engine change, show up to pitlane to run in a pack with no one interested in playing, and then having to roll back to the garage to swap over to a qualifying setup instead – while Larson spent hour after hour idly waiting.

Kyle Larson attempts the Double: Indianapolis 500-NASCAR Cup schedule

“We kind knew that was going to happen,” Kanaan said of Larson’s frustrations. “When you tell a driver, ‘You have eight hours of practice’ and it’s not really eight hours, because there’s rain and two crashes, and all a sudden it turns into three, and you’ve got pressure from people on the outside wondering, ‘Why aren’t you running?’, it’s quite common actually.

“I remember my first few years here, and that was the thing my team stressed to me. Because that’s how you get caught and how you crash.”

Thursday’s roughly six hours of on-track action saw two drivers fall victim to small mistakes that left them with massive repair jobs and an even wider chasm to bridge in order to find their way back towards the top by the end of qualifying weekend. It didn’t matter if you were a rookie – like Chip Ganassi Racing’s Linus Lundqvist – or a 500-winner – like Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson. IMS cared little.

That Larson simply didn’t crash likely won’t go down as a notable success in the Cup start’s daily notes, but if nothing else, Kanaan said, it’s a sign the 500 rookie is listening.

“What I’m trying to explain to him is what a ‘quality’ run is, and what’s a run just for your head. If you do 30 laps by yourself with two cars on-track, you’re not going to learn anything,” Kanaan said. “But it’s understandable. Tomorrow’s Fast Friday, and you don’t know what to expect, and I think there’s more people winding him up than just him.

“As a driver, you always think you’re behind. That’s the biggest challenge, and I’m having to explain that to him, but people don’t realize that until you experience it. Even guys with the most confidence like his, they get into, ‘Why is this place like this?’ It’s crazy how vulnerable you can become out of the blue.”

‘He can drive anything with wheels’: Arrow McLaren teammates on Kyle Larson

As the hours ticked by Thursday and Larson sat at the bottom of the timing charts with fewer than a dozen laps run over five hours – and nothing more than a scheduled engine change and an unlucky run plan to blame – social media began to feature murmurs and rumbles as to whether we had another McLaren 500 disaster (Fernando Alonso, circa 2019) on our hands.

When asked whether he thought outsiders’ worries had any merit, Kanaan didn’t scoff at the idea. There’s no two ways around it; Larson’s first three days of 500 practice haven’t exactly gone according to plan. But then again, nothing ever really does. It’s how the driver, the crew chief, the mechanics and the engineers respond to the unpredictability that plays a major role in sorting out the grid.

The car’s the right color. The steering wheel’s secured. So far, there have been no issues with gear ratio or mixing up inches and centimeters that have befallen the team. Kanaan assures there’s nothing from these three days that should any reasons to worry. At the same time, though, fortunes at IMS can change quickly. Positivity only gets you so far. Over the next 48 hours, realism, honesty and cool heads will be more important than forced smiles.

“We have two very strong cars with Pato (O’Ward) and (Alexander) Rossi, and we have the data to prove it. We’re not concerned. Now, are we going to live up to the expectations of wanting (Larson) to be in the top-9? That I don’t know,” Kanaan said. “Speed-wise, I’m not concerned. But also, that doesn’t matter. Friday, we’re going to turn the boost up, and we’ll see, and we might be worried about it all over again, and then you get to qualifying, and you just never know.

“Anything can happen – on the good or bad side, and both for us and the 33 other cars as well.”

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