Indy qualifying explained for newbies and vets alike

(Originally posted by Paul to Planet-IRL.com.)

Qualifying at Indianapolis is tough on the teams and the drivers.  However, keeping up with the rules and procedures is no easy task for the fans, either.  Unfortunately, I can’t explain it very well in 140 characters on Twitter, so I’ll see if I can’t explain it a bit better here.

The most important thing to remember about qualifications at Indianapolis is that all drivers line up according to the day they qualified and then by speed within that day.  Put another way, any driver, regardless of their speed, that qualifies successfully on Pole Day (and is not bumped before qualifying closes) will start ahead of any driver that qualifies on Bump Day.  If Milka Duno qualifies on Pole Day at 187 mph and Tony Kanaan qualifies on Bump Day at 250 mph, Milka would still start ahead of Tony Kanaan.  This explains why every so often the fastest qualifier for the race is not the pole sitter.  This famously happened in 1996 when Arie Luyendyk set one- and four-lap qualifying records (that stand to this day), but because he qualified on the second day of qualifications, he started 20th in the middle of row 7.

With that explained, let’s talk about bumping.  Things have gotten a bit confusing over the past couple of years since the number of spots available for qualifying each day has been limited, but the general theory has remained mostly unchanged for many decades — the fastest 33 cars start the Indianapolis 500.  There are two types of bumping that need to be discussed: day-bumping and race-bumping.  (No, you won’t find those terms anywhere else because I just made them up.  They’ll make sense in a couple of minutes.)

Let’s start with “day-bumping.” This was introduced in 2005 when the Indianapolis Motor Speedway decided to tinker with the age-old qualification procedure that went back to the first runnings of the race.  Previously, though, there was never a limit to how many cars could qualify on a given day, other than the fact there would only be 33 positions on the grid.  (To keep it simple, we’ll just ignore the odd years when more or less than 33 cars started the race.)  Starting in 2005, the powers-that-be instituted a new qualifying procedure that only allowed 11 spots to be filled in the field on each of the first three days of qualifications.  The fourth day would be used for traditional bumping (to be discussed in a moment).  Once the 11 spots for a given day were filled, day-bumping would begin and all drivers would try to work their way into those 11 spots.  At the end of the day, the drivers who posted the fastest 11 qualification attempts would earn those 11 spots.  Again, the 11 spots filled on day one would provisionally start in positions 1-11, day two qualifiers would start in positions 12-22, and day three qualifiers would start, provisionally, in positions 23-33.  Notice I said provisionally — once position 33 was filled, traditional Indy qualifying kicked in and “race bumping” began.

After you understand the part about day two qualifiers lining up behind day one qualifiers, here’s the next most important thing you need to know about qualifying at Indianapolis: nobody is locked into the field or their position under the final gun sounds on the final day of qualifying.  (Yes, the pole-sitter can be bumped in theory, though the odds of it happens are almost infinitesimally small.)  The race-bumping is done in order of qualifying speed, regardless of the day the slowest driver qualifies.  Once the 33 starting positions are filled, the drivers are ranked in order of speed from 1-33.  The slowest driver currently in the field, regardless of day qualified, is “on the bubble.”  If another driver can post a qualifying speed faster than the driver that is on the bubble, they “bump” their way into the race and into their appropriate ranking within the day’s qualifiers.  The “bumping” driver does not automatically go to the 33rd spot, nor do they take the position in the field of the car that got bumped out. If the bumped driver was a first-day qualifier, he or she would be removed from the field and all positions behind that car would be moved up one position as appropriate.

Here’s an example.  Looking at this year’s qualifying order, Bertrande Baguette had the slowest qualifying speed on Pole Day and is provisionally slated to start 24th.  Let’s assume that of the first nine cars to qualify on Sunday, none of them are slower than Baguette’s speed.  As soon as the 33rd spot is filled, Baguette, as the slowest currently qualified car is on the bubble.  Now let’s say that Tony Kanaan comes out and posts the 4th fastest qualifying speed of Bump Day.  Baguette’s car would be removed from the field and positions 25, 26, and 27 would all be moved up one spot.  Tony Kanaan, as the 4th fastest qualifier, would then be provisionally set to start 27th.  This continues all the way until 6:00pm on Sunday, when the final qualifying order is set.

Of course, if the slowest currently qualified car is a Bump Day qualifier, that would be provisionally position 33, so bumping that driver out of the field would likely result in some drivers moving further down the starting grid.  For this example, let’s assume Milka Duno goes out and puts a speed of 218 mph on the board and is the slowest qualifier in the field (and is also a Bump Day qualifier).  Then Tony Kanaan qualifies as the fourth fastest Bump Day qualifier.  This would put him into the field in position 28, move positions 28-33 down one spot, and bump Milka out of the field.

Clear as mud?!  Of course, all of this is in effect if rain doesn’t hamper activities and shake things up, but this is how things are supposed to run.  Rain, driver changes, car changes, and a host of other factors can wreak havoc on qualifying procedures, but I hope this at least clears up a few of the questions that people have had regarding the qualifying procedures at Indianapolis.