Alex Palou. Penske Entertainment: Chris Owens
Hot News IndyCar

IndyCar: Palou tops opening practice for GMR Grand Prix

Posted by AR1 staff

Alex Palou turned the fastest lap at 1m10.4555s to top opening practice for the NTT Data GMR Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Road Course.

Palou beat rookie Callum Ilott by just 0.0038s and Will Power by 0.0722s.

Alex Palou. Photo via Twitter

Graham Rahal and Felix Rosenqvist rounded out the top-5 in the near incident free 45-minute session.

Scott Dixon had a momentary scare at the start of the session when his Chip Ganassi Racing Honda was seen smoking on pit lane. It ended up just being some fluid burning off the exhaust, however, and he was able to head out on track shortly after.

The session went green until there was one minute left on the clock, when Helio Castroneves spun at pit in and required assistance to get his car started again.

Packed Grandstands?

While last weekend’s Miami GP Formula 1 race had over 50,000 in attendance for Friday practice, you can see from this video how man so-called IndyCar fans showed up for Friday practice at IMS today. Maybe we will see more in the 2nd practice coming up at 12:45pm ET. Qualifying is at 4:00pm ET

Practice Results

Pos No Name Time Diff Gap Laps Speed Engine Team
1 10 Alex Palou 1:10.4555 0.000s 0.000s 18 124.623 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing
2 77 Callum Ilott 1:10.4593 0.0038 0.0038 19 124.617 Chevy Juncos Hollinger Racing
3 12 Will Power 1:10.5277 0.0722 0.0684 17 124.496 Chevy Team Penske
4 15 Graham Rahal 1:10.6125 0.1570 0.0848 16 124.346 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
5 7 Felix Rosenqvist 1:10.7108 0.2553 0.0983 15 124.173 Chevy Arrow McLaren SP
6 8 Marcus Ericsson 1:10.7123 0.2568 0.0015 18 124.171 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing
7 60 Simon Pagenaud 1:10.7459 0.2904 0.0336 13 124.112 Honda Meyer Shank Racing
8 45 Jack Harvey 1:10.7817 0.3262 0.0358 15 124.049 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
9 06 Helio Castroneves 1:10.7911 0.3356 0.0094 13 124.033 Honda Meyer Shank Racing
10 26 Colton Herta 1:10.8352 0.3797 0.0441 15 123.955 Honda Andretti Autosport
11 5 Pato O’Ward 1:10.8584 0.4029 0.0232 12 123.915 Chevy Arrow McLaren SP
12 28 Romain Grosjean 1:10.8597 0.4042 0.0013 17 123.912 Honda Andretti Autosport
13 9 Scott Dixon 1:10.8632 0.4077 0.0035 18 123.906 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing
14 30 Christian Lundgaard 1:10.8853 0.4298 0.0221 17 123.868 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
15 27 Alexander Rossi 1:10.8906 0.4351 0.0053 17 123.858 Honda Andretti Autosport
16 2 Josef Newgarden 1:10.9343 0.4788 0.0437 17 123.782 Chevy Team Penske
17 3 Scott McLaughlin 1:10.9543 0.4988 0.0200 15 123.747 Chevy Team Penske
18 18 David Malukas 1:10.9703 0.5148 0.0160 20 123.719 Honda Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
19 20 Conor Daly 1:11.0008 0.5453 0.0305 15 123.666 Chevy Ed Carpenter Racing
20 29 Devlin DeFrancesco 1:11.0064 0.5509 0.0056 18 123.656 Honda Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
21 21 Rinus VeeKay 1:11.0720 0.6165 0.0656 13 123.542 Chevy Ed Carpenter Racing
22 51 Takuma Sato 1:11.1887 0.7332 0.1167 15 123.340 Honda Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
23 14 Kyle Kirkwood 1:11.5867 1.1312 0.3980 16 122.654 Chevy AJ Foyt Enterprises
24 48 Jimmie Johnson 1:11.6603 1.2048 0.0736 22 122.528 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing
25 6 Juan Pablo Montoya 1:12.0074 1.5519 0.3471 14 121.937 Chevy Arrow McLaren SP
26 4 Dalton Kellett 1:12.2094 1.7539 0.2020 18 121.596 Chevy AJ Foyt Enterprises
27 11 Tatiana Calderon 1:12.4361 1.9806 0.2267 11 121.216 Chevy AJ Foyt Enterprises