IndyCar: Power tops Friday practice in Nashville

The rain stopped and the first IndyCar practice on the Nashville street circuit was run in the dry, with IndyCar veteran Will Power on top with a lap of 1m16.4042s in his #12 Penske Chevy.

Power clipped the turn 1 wall late in the session and bent his front suspension, but hung on to the top spot, aided by two late red flags.

Alex Palou, headed to F1 next year, was 2nd in his #10 Ganassi Honda, 0.2452s behind.

Alexander Rossi put his #7 Arrow McLaren Chevy third. His teammate Pato O’Ward was 4th, while Christian Lundgaard rounded out the top-5 for Rahal Letterman Lanigan.

Linus Lindqvist, the substitute driver for the injured Simon Pagenaud, had mixed emotions about making his IndyCar debut on the crazy track that has resulted in unexpected finishes.   The young Swede has not run a race since last September when he won the Indy NXT Championship.

“It was a pretty late call to come and drive here.  I tried everything to stay prepared for the chance to race in an IndyCar.”

“It is going to be the toughest thing I  have ever done, jumping into the end of an IndyCar during the season and not having any experience with the race before and being asked to perform.  It is  going to be very, very tough.”

“But it is actually what I have been waiting for.   I have been working extremely hard for a situation like this, to go and perform.  I do have experience on this track so I am very excited to be back here.  I won the Indy NXT race last August here.”

‘Hopefully, the focus is to do a good this weekend, and I can run more than one race this season.  Still, the focus is to be on the grid full-time for 2024.”

The rookie was eleventh after this afternoon’s practice.

Nashville Practice 1 Results