Ericsson tops final day of IndyCar's Thermal Club pre-season test

Chip Ganassi Racing driver Ericsson took only four laps to lower the IndyCar lap record at the venue, beating Colton Herta's Thursday effort with a 1m38.422s lap.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver Christian Lundgaard, who was second quickest on Thursday afternoon, was just 0.145s slower than the defending Indianapolis 500 winner.

Kyle Kirkwood, who replaces Alexander Rossi in Andretti Autosport-Honda’s line-up for 2023, was fastest representative for Michael Andretti’s squad, 0.366s off top spot.

The former AJ Foyt Racing driver then went quickest in the afternoon, but couldn't match his morning effort with a 1min38.827s lap.

He might have improved still further, had he not suffered a brake fire after a mild off-course excursion which caused one of five red flags.

Lundgaard, Team Penske team-mates Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin, along with Pato O’Ward (Arrow McLaren) all fell foul of the tricky 17-turn circuit and fell off the asphalt.

However that disruption didn't prevent Callum Ilott (Juncos-Holinger) from beating the fastest Chevrolet time from the morning set by Penske's reigning champion Will Power.

Ilott ended the test fourth, ahead of top rookie Marcus Armstrong (Chip Ganassi Racing) and Power.

Callum Ilott, Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet

Photo by: IndyCar Series

The two-time series champion had earlier shaded McLaughlin in the morning by a mere 0.035s, but was 0.49s ahead in the afternoon.

Herta improved from 14th in the morning to seventh in the afternoon for Andretti, just ahead of Newgarden who was eighth fastest despite his incident.

But neither could eclipse the times set earlier by McLaughlin, Felix Rosenqvist (Arrow McLaren), and the Ganassi entries of Scott Dixon and Alex Palou. 

O'Ward, who ended the afternoon 17th fastest, had earlier caused a red flag with a spin, as did team-mate Rosenqvist and Andretti Autosport’s Devlin DeFrancesco.