Chip Ganassi's cars took the reins of the race during the first quarter of the test with Scott Dixon and Alex Palou swapping in the lead, while the Dutch Rinus VeeKay was positioned less than a second behind them.
VeeKay was out of contention when he crashed his car after the first round of pit stops, a moment Arrow McLaren took advantage of to catapult Patricio O'Ward from seventh to fifth.
With the green flag back on the track, the battle continued between Dixon and Palou. Still, the second round of stops would complicate the aspirations of the current champion of the category, the Spaniard.
Ganassi's New Zealander pitted on lap 69 for his second pitstop. Palou was going to do it on the next lap, but just then, Callum Ilott crashed and caused the second yellow flag of the afternoon. The pits were closed immediately, but the Spaniard could not return to the circuit because his fuel consumption was critical. He would have been left standing in the rotation if he had continued.
Palou refueled in an emergency but was penalized and dropped to 27th position. Above Dixon, Conor Daly, O'Ward, and Marcus Ericsson occupied the first four positions.
The race restarted on lap 78. Dixon held the lead before Daly briefly stole the information from him.
Crossing half the agreed distance, 100 of 200 laps, the New Zealander was ahead of Daly, followed by Mexican Patricio O'Ward. The three of them were less than a second apart. Ericsson, Kanaan, Ferrucci, Carpenter, Newgarden, Rosenqvist, and Sato ranked top 10.
With 106 spins on the counter, the window opened for the third round of stops. Daly pitted and left O'Ward for the second position. The American's move came when Frenchman Romain Grosjean crashed into the outside wall of Turn 2 to end his first start at the Indianapolis 500.
The pits opened on lap 108, and everyone except Daly stopped. Ed Carpenter's team remained in the lead while Dixon came back second, followed by O'Ward and Ferrucci. Alex Palou got into the top 20.
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