Palou tops opening Indy GP practice
The long opening practice session at the Sonsio Grand Prix was met with cool temperatures in the low 50s, high winds, and a lot of speed (...)
The long opening practice session at the Sonsio Grand Prix was met with cool temperatures in the low 50s, high winds, and a lot of speed from championship leader Alex Palou who led the assembly of 27 drivers with a top lap of 1m10.9790s around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
In response to IndyCar’s myriad of tire rule changes for the event and a reduction of Firestone tire sets from 10 to nine, the first 10 minutes of the session found 20 of the 27 cars sitting idle on pit lane. Other than performing installation laps, most of the field sat and saved tires — the alternates, in particular, with only four sets for the event — to use in qualifying and the race.
Although it’s customary for drivers to do at least one qualifying simulation run on the alternates during the first practice session, the loss of one set of alternate tires for the weekend meant the red-banded rubber went unused Friday morning.
After 15 minutes, rookie Louis Foster was quickest among the 10 drivers who ventured out, producing a 1m10.4815s lap in the No. 45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda. On the way to the 20-minute mark Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson brushed the wall while Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyffin Simpson stepped forward as 24 drivers joined the action to own the best lap with a 1m10.0677s in the No. 8 Honda.
With 12 minutes left, Simpson’s teammate Palou shot to first with a 1m09.9850s in the No. 10 Honda. Dale Coyne Racing’s Jacob Abel, who has Mike Colliver engineering his car this weekend while his regular engineer John Dick is away, had a harmless spin, and with nine minutes remaining, a red flag was needed to retrieve his teammate Rinus VeeKay, whose car stopped on track.
The field rolled out with five minutes in hand to try qualifying simulation runs on primary tires, and the top five held with Palou leading Simpson, AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci (1m10.1545s), Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel (1m10.1730s), and Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard (1m10.1853s).
Once the 40-minute stanza was over, the session and field was split into a pair of 12-minute outings with the first lasting 52 seconds before a red flag was needed to clear Marcus Armstrong’s Meyer Shank Racing car, which pulled off track on the entry to pit lane with a low-voltage issue.
Outside of a spin through the grass by VeeKay, there wasn’t much to report across the 12 minutes, barring Palou’s slight improvement to lead the group with a 1m10.9790s and Foster climbing to third with a 1m10.1235s lap.
The final segment — again with all on primary tires — had Ed Carpenter Racing’s Alexander Rossi in first with a 1m10.3228s in the No. 20 Chevy ahead of Graham Rahal in the No. 15 RLL Honda (1m10.4916s), Andretti Global’s Colton Herta in the No. 26 Honda (1m10.639s), Penske’s Will Power (1m10.658s) in the No. 12 Chevy, and Conor Daly in the No. 76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevy (1m10.780s).
UP NEXT: Practice 2, 1:10pm ET
