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IndyCar: Newgarden Fastest in First Practice at Laguna Seca

Lucille Dust

Championship contender Josef Newgarden led opening practice for the Firestone GP of Monterey IndyCar season finale with a lap of 1m11.4103 in his Penske Chevy with special shocks that their team has developed.

“Just a tricky session,” Newgarden said.  “There were a lot of people going off, and there was a lot of dirt on the track, so it was quite difficult to put it together. So not a very straightforward session.  But I think very productive in a lot of ways.”

“It’s not a lot of running, and you’re trying to make the most use of just a couple runs, and I felt like we did that, so I was happy about that.”

” I didn’t even really put together my best lap, and I’m sure that was the case for the majority of the field. It’s always hard to read off the first session. I think we’ll tighten up tomorrow.”

“I felt like we made really good use of our short time that we had today and short set
of tires that we had. We didn’t have a lot to work off of. ”

Josef Newgarden

Colton Herta, who won the last two races here, was 2nd quick in his #26 Andretti Honda, but he was 0.41s behind – an eternity.

Herta’s Andretti teammates Romain Grosjean and Alexander Rossi were 3rd and 4th.

Callum Ilott rounded out the top 5 in his Juncos Hollinger entry.

Practice 1 Results

Pos No Name Time Behind Gap Laps Speed Engine Team
1 2 Josef Newgarden 1:11.4103 0.000s 0.000s 17 112.824 Chevy Team Penske
2 26 Colton Herta 1:11.8266 0.4163 0.4163 16 112.170 Honda Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
3 28 Romain Grosjean 1:11.8697 0.4594 0.0431 18 112.103 Honda Andretti Autosport
4 27 Alexander Rossi 1:11.9034 0.4931 0.0337 20 112.050 Honda Andretti Autosport
5 77 Callum Ilott 1:11.9490 0.5387 0.0456 16 111.979 Chevy Juncos Hollinger Racing
6 60 Simon Pagenaud 1:11.9821 0.5718 0.0331 19 111.928 Honda Meyer Shank Racing
7 12 Will Power 1:11.9858 0.5755 0.0037 21 111.922 Chevy Team Penske
8 5 Pato O’Ward 1:12.0333 0.6230 0.0475 15 111.848 Chevy Arrow McLaren SP
9 18 David Malukas 1:12.0418 0.6315 0.0085 21 111.835 Honda Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
10 8 Marcus Ericsson 1:12.0803 0.6700 0.0385 14 111.775 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing
11 3 Scott McLaughlin 1:12.0877 0.6774 0.0074 14 111.764 Chevy Team Penske
12 7 Felix Rosenqvist 1:12.1036 0.6933 0.0159 14 111.739 Chevy Arrow McLaren SP
13 29 Devlin DeFrancesco 1:12.2135 0.8032 0.1099 26 111.569 Honda Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
14 10 Alex Palou 1:12.3102 0.8999 0.0967 19 111.420 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing
15 30 Christian Lundgaard 1:12.3193 0.9090 0.0091 19 111.406 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
16 06 Helio Castroneves 1:12.3840 0.9737 0.0647 21 111.306 Honda Meyer Shank Racing
17 9 Scott Dixon 1:12.3911 0.9808 0.0071 15 111.295 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing
18 51 Takuma Sato 1:12.4401 1.0298 0.0490 19 111.220 Honda Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
19 45 Jack Harvey 1:12.9774 1.5671 0.5373 15 110.401 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
20 15 Graham Rahal 1:13.0487 1.6384 0.0713 16 110.294 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
21 21 Rinus VeeKay 1:13.1004 1.6901 0.0517 19 110.216 Chevy Ed Carpenter Racing
22 20 Conor Daly 1:13.1450 1.7347 0.0446 18 110.148 Chevy Ed Carpenter Racing
23 14 Kyle Kirkwood 1:13.2761 1.8658 0.1311 27 109.951 Chevy AJ Foyt Enterprises
24 4 Dalton Kellett 1:13.6331 2.2228 0.3570 27 109.418 Chevy AJ Foyt Enterprises
25 48 Jimmie Johnson 1:13.9251 2.5148 0.2920 20 108.986 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing
26 16 Simona De Silvestro 1:14.0544 2.6441 0.1293 27 108.796 Chevy Paretta Autosport