Alex Palou overcomes early struggles to post top speed in Indy 500 practice

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Alex Palou keeps finding ways to reach the top of the IndyCar speed chart - even when mechanical issues get in the way.

After spending the first four hours of Indianapolis 500 practice struggling to find speed Tuesday, he radioed his crew about a problem on the rear end of the car, then watched his crew members tear apart the No. 10 Honda in Gasoline Alley, searching for a solution.

When the Spaniard returned to the track for the final 30 minutes of work, the defending Indy 500 champion and four-time series champ reclaimed the top spot with a fast lap of 225.937 mph. Just like that, Palou reasserted himself as the race favorite.

"It's good, it's good now," said Palou, who has won three of six races this season and leads the points race. "We had a few little issues, but we found something and it was good to go back out. It was just a shame we had those few little issues."

Palou wouldn't elaborate on exactly what his Chip Ganassi Racing crew members found.

The good news for Palou was that Tuesday's hot, slick, sometimes breezy conditions could serve as a barometer for the expected weather in Sunday's pole qualifying and again on race day, May 24.

The bad news: Palou now will have to test those adjustments in potentially much cooler temperatures Wednesday and Thursday in practice and Friday, when there's a chance of rain on the first day each car receives a turbocharge boost for qualifying weekend. There's also rain in the forecast Saturday's first round of four-lap qualifications.

As usual, the four-time series champ left the track unsatisfied.

"You always want to do a little more," he said.

Palou's fellow drivers would have liked to have done a little more, too.

Marcus Armstrong of Meyer Shank Racing spent most of the six-hour practice session atop the leaderboard with a fast lap of 225.895 - only to watch Palou pass him in the final 30 minutes.

Conor Daly, two-time Indy champ Josef Newgarden and six-time IndyCar champ Scott Dixon, the 2008 race winner, were the only other drivers to top 225 mph on a day the biggest obstacle, at times, seemed to be finding people to run with in traffic.

"Like (Alexander) Rossi sent out an angry group text and was like 'Why is everyone not going out,'" Daly said. "So we were all, there were a lot of us trying to figure out what's going on? But we're going to prioritize more single-car running probably Thursday, once we get closer to Fast Friday."

Andretti Global teammates Kyle Kirkwood and Will Power, the 2018 Indy champ, posted the fastest no-tow speeds at 222.062 and 221.455.

"It was, honestly, almost ideal conditions to qualifying here, a little breezy," Kirkwood said. "I don't know what it's going to look like Saturday. But yeah, it seems like we have something for all conditions."

Helio Castroneves began his fifth attempt to become Indy's first five-time winner with a problematic day. The Brazilian cut a tire about two hours into practice, bringing out an early yellow flag, wound up 15th on the speed chart at 233.332 and posted the slowest no-tow speed among the 33 drivers attempting to make the field at 216.898.

Dennis Hauger's team spent most of the practice session trying to fix a mechanical problem, but the rookie finally made it onto the track and turned six laps, finishing 26th at 221.583.

But it was no accident that some of the fastest drivers two weeks ago in an open test - Palou, Daly, Newgarden and Dixon - were fast again on opening day at Indianapolis.

"The wind is really making things interesting," Daly said. "It seems like over the last couple of years that's the changed the race a lot. I think the fact that the cars are completely different from (turn) one and two and (turn) three and four, I think that creates a really interesting equation for us as drivers."