IndyCar: Kirkwood Leads 1st Practice for St. Pete GP IndyCar: Kirkwood Leads 1st Practice for St. Pete GP

Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood turned the fastest lap in the NTT INDYCAR Series Practice 1 combined groups, with a lap time of 1m0.4409s around the St. Petersburg GP Street Course.

The 2024 Series Champion, Alex Palou, drove his No 10 DHL Honda to second place with a time of 1m 00.6004, 0.1595s behind Kirkwood.

Scott McLaughlin put his No 3 PPG Team Penske Chevrolet in the third spot with a time of 1m 01.0002 seconds, 0.5593s behind Kirkwood after wadding up his Penske Chevy earlier.

Kirkwood’s teammate, Colton Herta, was fourth fastest and Pato O’Ward rounded out the top 5.

The session was divided into three sessions. The first one was 45 minutes for all cars. The following 20 minutes split the field into two groups, with each group getting ten minutes of practice. The rookies were allowed to run both ten-minute sessions.

Scott McLaughlin made contact with the barrier in Turn 3 during his group’s ten minutes of practice. His No 3 DEX Imaging entry suffered suspension damage.

Marcus Armstrong, in his No 66 SiriusXM/Root Insurance entry, also had an incident in which he spun in Turn 3 during his last ten-minute session but did not make contact with anything.

Firestone GP of St. Petersburg Friday Practice Results

Rank	Car	Driver Name	Engine	Time	Speed	Diff	Gap	Laps
1	27	Kirkwood, Kyle	Honda	01:00.4409	107.212	–.—-	–.—-	20
2	10	Palou, Alex	Honda	01:00.6004	106.930	0.1595	0.1595	21
3	3	McLaughlin, Scott	Chevy	01:01.0002	106.229	0.5593	0.3998	19
4	26	Herta, Colton	Honda	01:01.0603	106.125	0.6194	0.0601	14
5	5	O’Ward, Pato	Chevy	01:01.1161	106.028	0.6752	0.0558	20
6	28	Ericsson, Marcus	Honda	01:01.1467	105.975	0.7058	0.0306	19
7	66	Armstrong, Marcus	Honda	01:01.1740	105.927	0.7331	0.0273	22
8	9	Dixon, Scott	Honda	01:01.1906	105.899	0.7497	0.0166	18
9	2	Newgarden, Josef	Chevy	01:01.2494	105.797	0.8085	0.0588	15
10	12	Power, Will	Chevy	01:01.2925	105.723	0.8516	0.0431	21
11	21	Rasmussen, Christian	Chevy	01:01.5480	105.284	1.1071	0.2555	25
12	45	Foster, Louis (R)	Honda	01:01.6124	105.174	1.1715	0.0644	31
13	76	Daly, Conor	Chevy	01:01.6149	105.169	1.1740	0.0025	23
14	20	Rossi, Alexander	Chevy	01:01.6603	105.092	1.2194	0.0454	20
15	6	Siegel, Nolan	Chevy	01:01.6823	105.054	1.2414	0.0220	26
16	7	Lundgaard, Christian	Chevy	01:01.6840	105.052	1.2431	0.0017	27
17	14	Ferrucci, Santino	Chevy	01:01.7499	104.939	1.3090	0.0659	18
18	90	Ilott, Callum	Chevy	01:01.8027	104.850	1.3618	0.0528	17
19	60	Rosenqvist, Felix	Honda	01:01.8390	104.788	1.3981	0.0363	17
20	15	Rahal, Graham	Honda	01:01.9510	104.599	1.5101	0.1120	22
21	4	Malukas, David	Chevy	01:02.0312	104.464	1.5903	0.0802	17
22	8	Simpson, Kyffin	Honda	01:02.0449	104.440	1.6040	0.0137	26
23	77	Robb, Sting Ray	Chevy	01:02.0631	104.410	1.6222	0.0182	24
24	83	Shwartzman, Robert (R)	Chevy	01:02.1063	104.337	1.6654	0.0432	20
25	18	Veekay, Rinus	Honda	01:02.1243	104.307	1.6834	0.0180	16
26	30	DeFrancesco, Devlin	Honda	01:02.3068	104.001	1.8659	0.1825	26
27	51	Abel, Jacob (R)	Honda	01:03.1262	102.652	2.6853	0.8194	23

(R) Rookie

Lucille Dust reporting live from St Pete