IndyCar GP: Power continues his domination in 1st Practice

Will Power
Will Power

Will Power continued his dominance of the Indy Speedway road course on Friday morning.

Power, the three-time winner of the NTT IndyCar Series race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course including the past two years, led Friday morning’s opening practice for the sixth edition of the INDYCAR Grand Prix with what has become a typically Will Power last-lap effort.

Driving the No. 12 Verizon 5G Team Penske Chevrolet, Power was clocked at 1 minute, 9.2890 seconds (126.721 mph) on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile permanent road course. The session-winning lap came after all cars were granted one timed lap following a late red-flag stoppage when Helio Castroneves, Power’s teammate was stopped on course.

“Not bad, a bit of work to do," Power said. “Obviously, one lap’s hard to judge on true pace because some people might put it together and some don’t. Just got to keep working at it. It’s going to be very tight – very, very tight – in qualifying."

Prior to Power’s late-session heroics, Spencer Pigot sat atop the timesheet. Pigot settled for the second-fastest lap, 1:09.4256 (126.472 mph) in the No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet and was pleased with the initial effort.

“It feels really good, it’s great to have a good start," Pigot said. “It’s only Practice 1 so there’s a lot of sessions left to go, but it’s nice to roll off the trailer with a really good car. ECR and Autogeek and everyone have done a great job over the break trying to improve. So far, it looks like we’ve made some good decisions."

Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist finished third and fourth, respectively, in the 45-minute practice. Dixon turned a lap of 1:09.4536 (126.421 mph) in the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda. Rosenqvist ran a lap of 1:09.5272 (126.287 mph) in the No. 10 NTT DATA Honda.

Practice 1 Results

Pos No Name FTime Diff Gap Laps Engine Team
1 12 Will Power 1:09.289 –.—- –.—- 19 Chevy Team Penske
2 21 Spencer Pigot 1:09.426 0.1366 0.1366 18 Chevy Ed Carpenter Racing
3 9 Scott Dixon 1:09.454 0.1646 0.0280 17 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
4 10 Felix Rosenqvist 1:09.527 0.2382 0.0736 23 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
5 2 Josef Newgarden 1:09.528 0.2392 0.0010 15 Chevy Team Penske
6 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay 1:09.534 0.2449 0.0057 16 Honda Andretti Autosport
7 26 Zach Veach 1:09.536 0.2466 0.0017 18 Honda Andretti Autosport
8 22 Simon Pagenaud 1:09.548 0.2592 0.0126 18 Chevy Team Penske
9 30 Takuma Sato 1:09.616 0.3271 0.0679 16 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
10 27 Alexander Rossi 1:09.621 0.3323 0.0052 15 Honda Andretti Autosport
11 5 James Hinchcliffe 1:09.622 0.3330 0.0007 15 Honda Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
12 60 Jack Harvey 1:09.671 0.3821 0.0491 19 Honda Meyer Shank Racing w/Arrow SPM
13 15 Graham Rahal 1:09.712 0.4231 0.0410 15 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
14 20 Ed Jones 1:09.722 0.4335 0.0104 17 Chevy Ed Carpenter Racing
15 88 Colton Herta 1:09.741 0.4521 0.0186 16 Honda Harding Steinbrenner Racing
16 31 Patricio O'Ward 1:09.766 0.4766 0.0245 15 Chevy Carlin
17 7 Marcus Ericsson 1:09.824 0.5351 0.0585 16 Honda Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsport
18 59 Max Chilton 1:09.878 0.5893 0.0542 17 Chevy Carlin
19 18 Sebastien Bourdais 1:10.038 0.7491 0.1598 16 Honda Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan
20 4 Matheus Leist 1:10.062 0.7726 0.0235 17 Chevy AJ Foyt Enterprises
21 19 Santino Ferrucci 1:10.074 0.7852 0.0126 18 Honda Dale Coyne Racing
22 98 Marco Andretti 1:10.091 0.8025 0.0173 17 Honda Andretti Herta Autosport w/Curb-Aga
23 3 Helio Castroneves 1:10.299 1.0102 0.2077 16 Chevy Team Penske
24 14 Tony Kanaan 1:10.757 1.4675 0.4573 15 Chevy AJ Foyt Enterprises