Shorter schedule favors big teams

In the estimation of Ganassi Racing managing director Mike Hull, an unintended consequence of the condensed Indianapolis 500 practice schedule this year is that it gives powerhouse teams like his an even greater advantage.

The bigger teams like Ganassi and Team Penske have limited room for improvement, he said Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. So with two weeks of preparation instead of one, the smaller teams had more time to close the gap.

"When I first started coming here, what Indianapolis afforded all of us to see was some team on race day taking advantage of its opportunity to do something special," Hull said. "When you reduce the track time, the difference between the haves and have-nots becomes greater."

Jimmy Vasser, co-owner of KV Racing Technology, agreed with Hull and offered up another downside to the change.

"It also kind of eliminates that guy who puts together a deal in the second week and gets into the race," he said. "We used to see a lot of those." Indy Star