Two Indianapolis 500 favorites are predicting a more traditional race next Sunday.

In other words, that means to expect less passing.

Since IndyCar implemented the DW12 chassis back in 2012, the race has featured a dramatic increase of slingshots and overtakes. In 2012, there were a then-race record 34 lead changes among 10 different drivers. That mark rocketed to 68 lead changes the next year. In 2014, it was 34 lead changes between 11 drivers. The 2015 race had 37 lead changes between 10 drivers, and the 2016 running featured 54 lead changes between 13 drivers.

Last year: 35 changes with 14 drivers.

It’s still early in practice, but Marco Andretti and Scott Dixon say it’s noticeably more difficult to complete a pass from deeper in the field with the new universal aero kit that made its debut in 2018.

"It's tougher, yeah," Andretti said. "It will be more, I think, about track position. Scott and I were talking about this a little earlier today. I prefer it to be about track position. I prefer once you get to the front, have a good car, you should be able to stay there instead of being a sitting duck.

"However, if you're third or back in line, it's going to be very tough. It's going to take discipline to wait for the guy to have a go and have a big wash-up, then you get him.

"It will be tougher to pass. But I prefer that."

Prior to the DW12 era, Indianapolis 500s were not always traditional barn burners. It was common to see somewhere between 6-10 different leaders and 13 lead changes, races often coming down to track position or fuel mileage.

Scott Dixon believes the 2018 race could harken back to that previous style of racing if teams don’t discover a solution in practice.

"The first two cars seem to be able to swap back and forth pretty easily," Dixon said. "As Marco just said, once you get third and back, especially if you're fifth and back, the wash-out seems to be a lot more this year, which is kind of interesting.

"It's early days. The car, I think we found some things that helped us today, helped that issue specifically. So, you know, the track temps are pretty high. That typically follows in that category, too. But, yeah, even if the guy gets a bit of a wash-out, but still has enough of a train in front of him, the acceleration is just insane. It's really hard to pass that guy if he does make a little bit of a mistake, whereas momentum seemed to be a bit of a key last year."

It’s worth noting that IndyCar officials had actively tried to maintain the style of racing from the previous six seasons with the new aero kit. IndyCar director of aerodynamic development Tino Belli recently told Autoweek that he believes they succeeded on that front.

"It’s very, very hard to predict," Belli told Autoweek. "I think the Indy 500 will be a very good race, probably similar to what we had since the DW12 came out in 2012. That is our target. We get a lot of passing here. We don’t really need much more. Our focus has been to try to keep it similar. That’s a hard task and hard to ask in its own right. It’s not like the short ovals, where we are trying to improve the show.

"There is a slight misconception that the speedway car has a lot less downforce because the road course and short oval car has a lot less downforce. Our target for here at Indianapolis was to try to keep the racing the same. It was a very difficult task because losing the wheel guards at the back of the car added a lot of drag, and we had to work very hard to get the drag levels down to be the same."

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