By David Morgan, Associate Editor
LEBANON, Tenn. – Even a brief hospital stay on Saturday in Nashville couldn’t keep David Malukas from the top of the speed chart at Nashville Superspeedway.
Malukas started Saturday at the 1.33-mile concrete oval in the wall and on his way to a local hospital for further evaluation, putting the remainder of the race weekend in doubt as to whether he would be able to return to pilot his No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet.
But with a rebuilt machine and a clean bill of health minus a banged up right knee, Malukas signaled his return in the best way possible by putting his machine at the top of the board with a lap of 24.153 seconds, 193.766 mph, in the final laps in preparation for Sunday’s Music City Grand Prix.
Malukas’ Team Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin finished the session second fastest, followed by Marcus Armstrong, Mick Schumacher, Felix Rosenqvist, Santino Ferrucci, Kyle Kirkwood, Alex Palou, Caio Collet, and Rinus VeeKay.
Afterwards, the 24-year-old was all smiles, recounting the whirlwind of a day that ended with him at the top of the pylon.
“Wow. Talk about busy in a different way, right? I mean, it was rushing. I was eating lunch while getting my knee scanned and looked at just to make the timing for this last practice,” said Malukas.
“But I mean, what an incredible support group behind me and this team to get this car flipped and ready to go. I mean, they almost had the thing ready for qualifying, which was unreal. So yeah, we definitely would not be able to be here standing right now and doing practice session without the group behind me.”
Malukas added that once he was in the car, he felt really good, with his bruised-up knee only causing him pain when bending it getting in or out of the car, and he and the team currently have no plans for any sort of extra wrapping or padding to help him in the car.
“Honestly, it felt really good. Medical team got me sorted out and obviously a little bit of adrenaline I’m running on there,” said Malukas. “Honestly, with the knee, all the pain is with movement in the car. My knee is at full extension so there’s no pain. It’s pretty funny. It’s painful getting in and out, but once you’re in it, it’s great. I love it.”
Team Penske President Jonathan Diuguid acknowledged the missteps that put Malukas in the situation he was in during the opening practice, but was thankful his driver came out relatively unscathed and would be ready to go for Sunday’s race.
“Obviously, it was an unfortunate situation, but it goes to show you the speeds these cars are turning around the track here,” Diuguid told FOX Sports during practice. “Honestly, we have seen it before with some Indy crashes and things like that, but it’s been a while. It was a big hit. Obviously, we didn’t want it to happen.
“The way the weekends work out, we kind of start the weekend with qualifying simulations, so they have to go out there and trust the car right away. And we missed it a little bit and put him in that scenario. Luckily, he came out OK and is going to be able to race tomorrow.”
Prior to Malukas return, Team Penske had lined up Conor Daly to pilot the car in qualifying should the process to rebuild the car be complete before time trials, but Daly’s services would not be needed in the end as Malukas was on his way toward being cleared to drive in Saturday’s final practice and Sunday’s race.
“It’s not something that we ever want to have to do, but you want to be prepared,” Diuguid noted. “Like you mentioned, we have a short list of people. We had this scenario also earlier this year with Josef [Newgarden]’s injury and had Felipe [Nasr] on standby.
“Conor is an obvious choice; he runs very well at the 500 and has a relationship with Chevy as well. He was going to be our choice and like I said, luckily, we didn’t have to do that and David will be ready to go tomorrow.”
Malukas will have to start from shotgun on the field with his absence from qualifying on top of a nine-place grid penalty that had been assessed to start the weekend, but with an extended race distance this time around in Nashville, he noted that he is ready for whatever race day brings.
“It’s going to be a lot of passing,” said Malukas. “A lot of it’s going to be with the sweeping under yellow because when you do 15 laps, the marbles is truly, it’s a lot. I mean, you go half a line. I mean, Kyle [Kirkwood] came out of the pits, I went half a line just to pass him on the inside. And I mean, I almost slid off in Turn 1. That’s how bad the marbling is.
“And I think that’s what a lot of those incidences were at the end there, people weren’t even going that high and they’re getting caught out by it. So, it’s going to be a lot of yellows in those first 10, 15 laps, but it’s going to be hard work. But actually, I was thinking going into this race, it’s such a long race. I was like, man, it’s going to be tough work, but now I’m happy.
“The longer the race, the more opportunity for us to go forward.”
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