Photo credit: Penske Entertainment | Travis Hinkle
By the narrowest of margins—both on the schedule and the timesheets—Jack Harvey found that extra bit of speed to bump his way into the field for the 2023 Indianapolis 500. It’s a relief, but Harvey emphasized “It’s not a good feeling, to be honest with you.
“It’s not a moment necessarily for celebration. As a team we’re going to be starting 30th, 31st and 33rd, and I hated it today, felt like we were in the Hunger Games with our own team.”
Indeed, Harvey got in at the expense of his teammate, Graham Rahal, still waiting in his car as Harvey completed what would be his third and final run of the day. Had Harvey succeeded on run two, it would have been Rahal going out for that final attempt.
“I said to Graham, I’m sorry, I’m not sorry. What do you say to someone in that moment? I want to be in the race. I want to be in the 107th running of the Indy 500. I want to do it for me, for my family, my friends. I want to do it for the mechanics on the team, for everybody on the team.”
The next daunting task is, after finding just enough pace to make the field in the first place, trying to find any additional speed left in the car before race day.
As Harvey points out, Alex Palou’s best lap on his four-lap run in the Fast Six was in the 235mph bracket. Harvey’s quickest in Last Chance Qualifying was only 230mph.
“When I look at the speed that they can do, we’re comfortably five miles an hour off. There’s an enormous amount of work to try and do, in truth, and hopefully we’ve got here to try and figure it out.
“We’re going to work as hard as we can. We’ve just got to find the grit and the determination to make it happen. But it’s a great group, and I’m excited that we’re going to be in the race, albeit last. We’ll do our best now.”
