Changes For Indianapolis 500 Schedule, Qualifying Format

IndyCar has announced an addition to the practice schedule and details of the new qualification format for next month's Indianapolis 500.

The schedule change features an extra day of on-track activity with the addition of a practice session on Monday, May 19, from 12 to 5 p.m.

IndyCar announced the new qualification format last month. The weekend will culminate on Sunday, May 18 with the Fast Nine Shootout, which will determine the pole position and the Verizon P1 Award.

Now, IndyCar confirmed an update to the qualification format that allows a competitor that suffers a hardship during qualifying Saturday an opportunity to make the starting field during Sunday qualifications. This revision would also permit teams that want to bring new entries forward after qualifying on Saturday an opportunity to compete for a position in the race.  In both cases, these teams would be restricted to the last row of the field.

At the conclusion of Saturday's qualifications, positions 31-33 will be provisional and those cars, plus any entry not already in the field that has declared its intention to qualify prior to 7 p.m. on Saturday, will participate in a separate session on Sunday to determine the 11th row on the grid.

Sunday's qualifying will include three separate group sessions:

• Group One (10:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.) - Determines starting positions 10-30;
• Group Two (12:45-1:30 p.m.)  - Determines positions 31-33; and
• The Fast Nine Shootout (2:00-2:45 p.m.) - Determines the Verizon P1 Award winner and first three rows of the race.

ABC will televise qualifications live from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday, May 17, and 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday, May 18, in addition to the 98th Running of the Indianapolis 500, marking its 50th consecutive year of coverage of the race. Additional hours of qualifying will be carried on ESPN3, ESPN's multi-screen live sports network.