IndyCar News: Palou tops opening practice at Road America

Chip Ganassi driver Alex Palou turned a lap of 1m43.1709s around the 4-mile Road America Circuit to top opening IndyCar Practice. Palou has won here twice.

“It’s a really great start so far,” Palou said. “It doesn’t mean anything; it just means that the car is really good, easy to drive. It’s great to be back here. A proper track for INDYCAR. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

Andretti Global’s Colton Herta was second fastest with a lap of 1:43.2506.

AJ Foyt Enterprises’ Santino Ferrucci was third quickest with a lap of 1:43.3618.

This year’s Indy 500 winner, Josef Newgarden, was fourth fastest with a lap of 1:43.3812.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Christian Lundgaard rounded out the top five with his lap time of 1:43.3984.

Luca Ghiotto was the quickest of the six rookies in the 27-driver field, 17th at 1:44.1009 in the No. 51 GAV Air Technology Honda of Dale Coyne Racing. INDY NXT by Firestone championship contender Nolan Siegel, named earlier today to substitute for Agustin Canapino at this race, was 26th at 1:45.1027 in the No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet.

Romain Grosjean made contact with the tire barrier adjacent to that turn in his No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet, triggering a red flag 19 minutes into the session. He was unhurt.

Santino Ferrucci

Santino Ferrucci spoke with the media after practice and was pleased with his position, beating his Team Penske alliance teammate, Josef Newgarden.

“Yeah, obviously I think if you look at our results, we have four top 10s in six races, on all tracks now, so street, road and oval. It’s been a much easier I want to say way of rolling off of the hauler. So we unroll pretty quick. ”

“Last year we were actually competitive here, which was nice. We were able to take some of that and mix it in with our Penske alliance. Obviously we get some dampers from them. So putting everything together, we have a pretty good car.”

“Still part of that speed is due to James Schnabel, who is a Penske employee, my race engineer, and them helping us out. It’s pretty cool.”

“I actually feel very comfortable because it’s a car I’ve been on before. I’m not trying to learn something new for the first time this weekend as far as setup goes.”

Augustin Canapino

Canapino taking a break this weekend Photo by Lucille Dust/Autoracing1

Just before practice one started, Juncos Hollinger Racing announced that Agustin Canapino would be replaced this weekend by Nolan Seigel in the No 78 Chevrolet. This was a result of Canapino’s fans’ social media postings to Arrow McLaren’s Theo Pourchaire after a racing incident in the Detroit Grand Prix.

Practice 1 Results

Pos	No	Name	Time	Behind	Gap	FL	Laps	Speed	Engine	Team
1	10	Alex Palou	1:43.1709	0.000s	0.000s	16	16	140.063	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
2	26	Colton Herta	1:43.2506	0.0797	0.0797	11	12	139.955	Honda	Andretti Global w/Curb‑Agajanian
3	14	Santino Ferrucci	1:43.3618	0.1909	0.1112	16	16	139.804	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
4	2	Josef Newgarden	1:43.3812	0.2103	0.0194	6	13	139.778	Chevy	Team Penske
5	45	Christian Lundgaard	1:43.3984	0.2275	0.0172	14	18	139.755	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
6	9	Scott Dixon	1:43.5340	0.3631	0.1356	15	15	139.572	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
7	12	Will Power	1:43.5729	0.4020	0.0389	12	16	139.519	Chevy	Team Penske
8	3	Scott McLaughlin	1:43.6215	0.4506	0.0486	16	17	139.454	Chevy	Team Penske
9	5	Pato O’Ward	1:43.6815	0.5106	0.0600	13	14	139.373	Chevy	Arrow McLaren
10	11	Marcus Armstrong	1:43.6957	0.5248	0.0142	17	18	139.354	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
11	30	Pietro Fittipaldi	1:43.7134	0.5425	0.0177	24	28	139.330	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
12	60	Felix Rosenqvist	1:43.7418	0.5709	0.0284	12	13	139.292	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
13	20	Christian Rasmussen	1:43.7548	0.5839	0.0130	24	24	139.275	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
14	27	Kyle Kirkwood	1:43.7758	0.6049	0.0210	16	16	139.246	Honda	Andretti Global
15	21	Rinus VeeKay	1:43.8637	0.6928	0.0879	21	22	139.128	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
16	7	Alexander Rossi	1:43.9887	0.8178	0.1250	14	15	138.961	Chevy	Arrow McLaren
17	15	Graham Rahal	1:44.0668	0.8959	0.0781	18	19	138.857	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
18	51	Luca Ghiotto	1:44.1009	0.9300	0.0341	17	22	138.811	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing
19	6	Theo Pourchaire	1:44.2568	1.0859	0.1559	19	22	138.604	Chevy	Arrow McLaren
20	28	Marcus Ericsson	1:44.3535	1.1826	0.0967	15	17	138.475	Honda	Andretti Global
21	4	Kyffin Simpson	1:44.4443	1.2734	0.0908	22	24	138.355	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
22	66	Helio Castroneves	1:44.5616	1.3907	0.1173	16	17	138.200	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
23	8	Linus Lundqvist	1:44.6000	1.4291	0.0384	22	23	138.149	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
24	41	Sting Ray Robb	1:44.9410	1.7701	0.3410	17	18	137.700	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
25	18	Jack Harvey	1:44.9660	1.7951	0.0250	15	17	137.667	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing
26	78	Nolan Siegel	1:45.1027	1.9318	0.1367	17	18	137.488	Chevy	Juncos Hollinger Racing
27	77	Romain Grosjean	16:48.811	15:05.6408	15:03.709	1	1	14.324	Chevy	Juncos Hollinger Racing

Lucille Dust reporting live from Road America