The American, who has previously raced in both Formula 1 and NASCAR, has struggled throughout practice to garner enough speed to bring him up the time sheets.
With frustration mounting, rumours began to fly that Speed had left his drive just one day shy of Pole Day for the great race.
Come the close of “Fast Friday”, Speed was 39th and last in practice with a speed of 222.5 mph; however with only 33 cars able to qualify for the race, the American may have been left on the outside looking in.
Speed’s rookie teammate and Renault Formula 1 reserve, Ho-Pin Tung, was running laps around 225 mph during the final day of practice.
Two drivers, Jacques Lazier and Jimmy Kite, were spotted outside Dragon Racing and Scott Speed’s garage very shortly after the former Toro Rosso driver walked, leading to speculation that Jay Penske may put one of the pair into the car for Bump Day.
Scott Speed has taken to Twitter to deny this. Also, the SpeedCenter guys from SpeedTV (@spdctr on Twitter) said they talked directly to him, and he said he was still in:
http://www.facebook.com/spdctr/posts/10150192643812999
Just an FYI. I was saying the same thing you were on Twitter until I saw the latest Tweets. Ooops on my part.
Aye – just saw that myself.
Marshall Pruett from Speed TV has reported that Speed is now going for a run at 8am, but I bet Dragon will have someone waiting on the sidelines just in case.