Conor Daly was reluctant to say it, but it’s obvious he has a pretty strong bullet for the 110th Running of the Indianapolis 500.
“Yeah, I know it does,” Daly told Motorsport.com. “I kind of hate to say it because I don’t really want to get too far ahead of myself, but this is the best car I’ve ever had here for sure. I think I can confidently say that right now.”
The ‘hometown kid’ from nearby Noblesville, Indiana, Daly delivered the fastest lap thus far in two days of testing with a 228.080mph flyer to lead the field on Wednesday. He was third on the timesheets on the opening day of practice.
Even more than showcasing the pace of the #23 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Chevrolet, is how Daly is able to seemingly pass at will. With that, though, he’s cautious to get too confident given the favorable cool conditions.
“I can cut through traffic like I’ve never been able to before, but the conditions have been very nice,” said Daly, 34. “I want it to warm up and get a little bit harder on ourselves. We’ll just see what happens. One day at a time, but we’ve been really happy with it so far.”
Daly, who has a best finish of sixth (2022) as part of five top 10s in 12 Indy 500 starts, comes into the situation with the Indy 500 being his only race to date on the calendar, which has made it a different challenge to stay in ‘race shape.’ However, he’s kicked his fitness up a notch.
“I did a lot of running this offseason,” Daly said. “I’ve ran more than I’ve ever done for some reason. I feel really fit and I feel really good. I’ve tried to stay in the gym more than I’ve ever done in my life. Just been ready to go and worked a lot on the mental side of things and just talk to people about how to be as prepared as possible.”
Daly has spent the entirety of both practices in race trim, while teammate Jack Harvey has done a lot of single-car running and impressed on the no-tow timesheets. For Thursday, though, the page turns for Daly to start working more on qualifying.
“Today will be a big day for us because we’re going to finally get in the qualifying trim,” Daly said. “We’ve only been running race running so far. My teammate’s been doing a little bit of qualifying trim stuff.
“After today, we’ll know a lot more about how we feel and what we need to get out of the car. And then hopefully tomorrow is a lot of fun, too. So we’ll see what happens.”
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