Saturday morning Update from Barber Motorsports Park

Can Hinch win the pole?

It was a sunny morning here in Birmingham at the sprawling 2.3 mile, 17 turn road course. The weather is predicted to take a turn this afternoon with thunderstorms starting around 2 pm and continuing through most of the evening. IndyCar qualifying is scheduled for 3 pm this afternoon.

The story today is the alternative (red) Firestone tires. Each road and street course we race at, the red tires are tested and produced specially for that course. Typically the red tires are faster then the primary (black) tires but wear quicker because they are softer. The teams are allotted a set of reds to run during the Friday practice only so they can get some setup data for the balance of the car.

Yesterday, the reds were not quicker than the blacks. Several drivers commented on what they experienced on the reds. James Hinchcliffe, driving the number 5 for Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, was the fastest for Friday and had this to say about his reds. "This afternoon was very weird. I made a couple of mistakes on my black lap. I don't think that we were as high up before switching to reds as we would have liked or where we were capable of being, and then we threw on the reds, and the balance just fell apart, and the car was — I've never been so unhappy with the balance of my race car."

"It's interesting because last year at Barber the balance between the black and the red Firestones was actually quite small for us. This year that was not the case. I'm really glad we got the set for P2 because it would have sucked to go in qualifying without getting to try them."

Colton Herta, winner of the inaugural race at COTA two weeks ago, was also puzzled by the tires. "Massive differences. James Hinchcliffe was the only one that I saw that actually got quicker on the reds. So, I'm not really sure what's going on. The reds felt kind of awkward for some reason. They didn't feel good at all."

And I thought it was just me when I was out on track, but it looks like a general trend. I actually went half a second slower on reds. So, it's definitely something to look at. It's going to be changing up the tire strategies and what people are going to be doing in practice compared to tires for qualifying and the race, but yeah, it's definitely a different situation. I'm not sure what's going on, but it should be a mix-up. It has kind of threw out my whole qualifying prediction on what tires we were going to run and the whole plan of the weekend has changed."

Santino Ferrucci, another rookie in the series, driving in the number 19 for Dale Coyne Racing, had this to say about his practice run. "In Practice 2, we went out on the primary Firestone tire and we were instantly competitive. The David Yurman car felt really good and I was pretty confident. But then we put the red (Firestone alternate) tires on, and we still have a lot to learn. So, there's still a little bit of work to do before going into qualifying tomorrow, but I have confidence in the team. It's nice to end the day near the top of the time sheets, even if it's just the first day of practice."

The final practice of the weekend is at 11:45 am ET.

Lucille Dust reporting live from Barber Motorsports Park