Newgarden tops opening IndyCar practice at COTA

Josef Newgarden
Josef Newgarden

Josef Newgarden turned the quickest lap in opening practice for the IndyCar Classic at the Circuit of the Americas in his Penske Chevy. Newgarden's lap of 1m48.657s topped rookie sensation Colton Herta who was 2nd quick in the Harding Steinbrenner Honda by 0.1372s.

However, Herta was the latest driver to lose a Honda engine, bringing out a lengthy red flag as the HPD squad scrambles to figure out the problem.

Alexander Rossi was third quick at 1m49.046s in his Andretti Honda and Ryan Hunter-Reay and Graham Rahal rounded out the top-5.

Honda drivers were 2nd thru 6th so they have the speed, but if their engine keep popping that is going to be a real concern for the Honda teams.

Practice 1 Results

Pos No Name FTime Diff Gap FSpeed Engine Tire Team
1 2 Josef Newgarden 1:48.657 –.—- –.—- 112.980 Chevy P Team Penske
2 88 Colton Herta 1:48.794 0.1372 0.1372 112.837 Honda P Harding Steinbrenner Racing
3 27 Alexander Rossi 1:49.046 0.3889 0.2517 112.577 Honda P Andretti Autosport
4 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay 1:49.501 0.8444 0.4555 112.108 Honda P Andretti Autosport
5 15 Graham Rahal 1:49.508 0.8509 0.0065 112.102 Honda P Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
6 10 Felix Rosenqvist 1:49.685 1.0279 0.1770 111.921 Honda P Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
7 22 Simon Pagenaud 1:49.720 1.0637 0.0358 111.884 Chevy P Team Penske
8 12 Will Power 1:49.738 1.0813 0.0176 111.866 Chevy P Team Penske
9 9 Scott Dixon 1:49.854 1.1975 0.1162 111.748 Honda P Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
10 59 Max Chilton 1:50.019 1.3620 0.1645 111.581 Chevy P Carlin
11 7 Marcus Ericsson 1:50.067 1.4100 0.0480 111.532 Honda P Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsport
12 5 James Hinchcliffe 1:50.201 1.5438 0.1338 111.397 Honda P Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
13 4 Matheus Leist 1:50.235 1.5779 0.0341 111.362 Chevy P AJ Foyt Enterprises
14 21 Spencer Pigot 1:50.305 1.6479 0.0700 111.292 Chevy P Ed Carpenter Racing
15 19 Santino Ferrucci 1:50.399 1.7419 0.0940 111.197 Honda P Dale Coyne Racing
16 31 Patricio O'Ward 1:50.490 1.8329 0.0910 111.105 Chevy P Carlin
17 98 Marco Andretti 1:50.548 1.8910 0.0581 111.047 Honda P Andretti Herta Autosport with CA
18 26 Zach Veach 1:50.910 2.2529 0.3619 110.685 Honda P Andretti Autosport
19 30 Takuma Sato 1:51.091 2.4341 0.1812 110.504 Honda P Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
20 18 Sebastien Bourdais 1:51.320 2.6635 0.2294 110.276 Honda P Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sully
21 60 Jack Harvey 1:51.513 2.8563 0.1928 110.086 Honda P Meyer Shank Racing with Arrow SPM
22 14 Tony Kanaan 1:51.733 3.0759 0.2196 109.869 Chevy P AJ Foyt Enterprises
23 32 Kyle Kaiser 1:51.796 3.1388 0.0629 109.808 Chevy P Juncos Racing
24 20 Ed Jones 1:52.630 3.9734 0.8346 108.994 Chevy P Ed Carpenter Racing