Newgarden tops opening IndyCar practice at Road America

Josef Newgarden
Josef Newgarden

Josef Newgarden turned the fastest lap in his Penske Chevy to top opening IndyCar practice for the Kohler Grand Prix at Road America. His time of 1m43.048s was 0.4 seconds faster than Takuma Sato and 0.5s faster than Alexander Rossi, both in Hondas.

Robert Wickens (SPM Honda) was 4th quick and Marco Andretti (Andretti Honda) rounded out the top-5. Very few laps were turned in the incident-free session because IndyCar does not give the teams enough tires for this track.

The track record on the 4.048 mi, 14-turn road course in the hills of Wisconsin of 1:39.866 set by Dario Franchitti in his Team KOOL Green CART IndyCar in 2000 (when IndyCars were real cars) does not look to be under threat.

More to follow…..

Practice 1 Results

Pos No Name FTime Diff Gap FSpeed Engine Team
1 1 Josef Newgarden 1:43.048 –.—- –.—- 140.230 Chevy Team Penske
2 30 Takuma Sato 1:43.473 0.4252 0.4252 139.654 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
3 27 Alexander Rossi 1:43.560 0.5126 0.0874 139.536 Honda Andretti Autosport
4 6 Robert Wickens 1:43.577 0.5297 0.0171 139.513 Honda Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
5 98 Marco Andretti 1:43.882 0.8348 0.3051 139.103 Honda Andretti Herta Autosport with CA
6 14 Tony Kanaan 1:44.043 0.9952 0.1604 138.889 Chevy AJ Foyt Enterprises
7 21 Spencer Pigot 1:44.108 1.0603 0.0651 138.802 Chevy Ed Carpenter Racing
8 26 Zach Veach 1:44.131 1.0829 0.0226 138.772 Honda Andretti Autosport
9 9 Scott Dixon 1:44.164 1.1166 0.0337 138.727 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
10 4 Matheus Leist 1:44.296 1.2486 0.1320 138.551 Chevy AJ Foyt Enterprises
11 22 Simon Pagenaud 1:44.319 1.2709 0.0223 138.522 Chevy Team Penske
12 10 Ed Jones 1:44.352 1.3043 0.0334 138.477 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
13 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay 1:44.440 1.3924 0.0881 138.361 Honda Andretti Autosport
14 12 Will Power 1:44.458 1.4104 0.0180 138.337 Chevy Team Penske
15 59 Max Chilton 1:44.596 1.5486 0.1382 138.154 Chevy Carlin
16 18 Sebastien Bourdais 1:44.677 1.6293 0.0807 138.048 Honda Dale Coyne Racing with VS
17 5 James Hinchcliffe 1:44.700 1.6522 0.0229 138.017 Honda Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
18 15 Graham Rahal 1:44.865 1.8178 0.1656 137.799 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
19 23 Charlie Kimball 1:44.905 1.8573 0.0395 137.747 Chevy Carlin
20 19 Zachary Claman De Melo 1:44.912 1.8647 0.0074 137.738 Honda Dale Coyne Racing
21 32 Alfonso Celis Jr 1:44.916 1.8687 0.0114 137.733 Chevy Juncos Racing
22 20 Jordan King 1:45.058 2.0101 0.1414 137.547 Chevy Ed Carpenter Racing
23 88 Gabby Chaves 1:46.448 3.4008 1.3907 135.750 Chevy Harding Racing