IndyCar: McLaughlin tops opening Barber practice
–by Mark Cipolloni–
In a session punctuated by 3 red flags, Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin tuned a lap of 1m06.6610s to top opening practice for the Children’s of Alabama IndyCar GP at Barber Motorsports Park Friday afternoon.
Andretti Autosport’s Colton Herta was 2nd fastest in his #26 Honda, 0.1583s behind.
Will Power turned his fastest lap in the final minute of the session to finish 3rd quick, 0.2375s behind.
Marcus Ericsson was 4th for Ganassi Racing and Christian Lindgaard rounded out the top-5 the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
Practice 1 Results
| Pos | No | Name | Time | Behind | Gap | FL | Laps | Speed | Engine | Team |
| 1 | 3 | Scott McLaughlin | 1:06.6610 | 0.000s | 0.000s- | 16 | 16 | 124.211 | Chevy | Team Penske |
| 2 | 26 | Colton Herta | 1:06.8193 | 0.1583 | 0.1583 | 17 | 17 | 123.916 | Honda | Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian |
| 3 | 12 | Will Power | 1:06.8985 | 0.2375 | 0.0792 | 21 | 21 | 123.770 | Chevy | Team Penske |
| 4 | 9 | Scott Dixon | 1:06.9345 | 0.2735 | 0.0360 | 17 | 17 | 123.703 | Honda | Chip Ganassi Racing |
| 5 | 8 | Marcus Ericsson | 1:06.9994 | 0.3384 | 0.0649 | 17 | 19 | 123.583 | Honda | Chip Ganassi Racing |
| 6 | 45 | Christian Lundgaard | 1:07.0200 | 0.3590 | 0.0206 | 20 | 22 | 123.545 | Honda | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing |
| 7 | 2 | Josef Newgarden | 1:07.0579 | 0.3969 | 0.0379 | 15 | 17 | 123.475 | Chevy | Team Penske |
| 8 | 5 | Pato O’Ward | 1:07.0771 | 0.4161 | 0.0192 | 15 | 15 | 123.440 | Chevy | Arrow McLaren |
| 9 | 60 | Simon Pagenaud | 1:07.1071 | 0.4461 | 0.0300 | 14 | 19 | 123.385 | Honda | Meyer Shank Racing |
| 10 | 10 | Alex Palou | 1:07.1678 | 0.5068 | 0.0607 | 21 | 22 | 123.273 | Honda | Chip Ganassi Racing |
| 11 | 7 | Alexander Rossi | 1:07.2483 | 0.5873 | 0.0805 | 18 | 21 | 123.126 | Chevy | Arrow McLaren |
| 12 | 15 | Graham Rahal | 1:07.3181 | 0.6571 | 0.0698 | 18 | 19 | 122.998 | Honda | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing |
| 13 | 21 | Rinus VeeKay | 1:07.3990 | 0.7380 | 0.0809 | 16 | 18 | 122.850 | Chevy | Ed Carpenter Racing |
| 14 | 77 | Callum Ilott | 1:07.4038 | 0.7428 | 0.0048 | 19 | 21 | 122.842 | Chevy | Juncos Hollinger Racing |
| 15 | 18 | David Malukas | 1:07.4101 | 0.7491 | 0.0063 | 14 | 19 | 122.830 | Honda | Dale Coyne Racing with HMD |
| 16 | 29 | Devlin DeFrancesco | 1:07.4765 | 0.8155 | 0.0664 | 16 | 17 | 122.709 | Honda | Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport |
| 17 | 11 | Marcus Armstrong | 1:07.4770 | 0.8160 | 0.0005 | 30 | 30 | 122.708 | Honda | Chip Ganassi Racing |
| 18 | 20 | Conor Daly | 1:07.5920 | 0.9310 | 0.1150 | 19 | 20 | 122.500 | Chevy | Ed Carpenter Racing |
| 19 | 28 | Romain Grosjean | 1:07.6038 | 0.9428 | 0.0118 | 4 | 9 | 122.478 | Honda | Andretti Autosport |
| 20 | 30 | Jack Harvey | 1:07.7399 | 1.0789 | 0.1361 | 17 | 18 | 122.232 | Honda | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing |
| 21 | 6 | Felix Rosenqvist | 1:07.7901 | 1.1291 | 0.0502 | 12 | 23 | 122.142 | Chevy | Arrow McLaren |
| 22 | 27 | Kyle Kirkwood | 1:07.8077 | 1.1467 | 0.0176 | 6 | 20 | 122.110 | Honda | Andretti Autosport |
| 23 | 06 | Helio Castroneves | 1:07.9041 | 1.2431 | 0.0964 | 19 | 19 | 121.937 | Honda | Meyer Shank Racing |
| 24 | 78 | Agustin Canapino | 1:07.9130 | 1.2520 | 0.0089 | 24 | 26 | 121.921 | Chevy | Juncos Holling Racing |
| 25 | 51 | Sting Ray Robb | 1:07.9557 | 1.2947 | 0.0427 | 6 | 30 | 121.844 | Honda | Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR |
| 26 | 14 | Santino Ferrucci | 1:08.0966 | 1.4356 | 0.1409 | 16 | 16 | 121.592 | Chevy | AJ Foyt Enterprises |
| 27 | 55 | Benjamin Pedersen | 1:08.3643 | 1.7033 | 0.2677 | 25 | 27 | 121.116 | Chevy | AJ Foyt Enterprises |