Gateway IndyCar: Penske 1-2 as Newgarden leads McLaughlin in practice

For most of the session, Newgarden led with a 177.562mph lap but as two-lap qualifying simulations got underway, McLaughlin edged ahead with a 177.669mph effort.

Then Newgarden delivered a 178.600 mph lap, just 25.1959sec around the 1.25-mile WWT Raceway, before going still faster with a 178.774mph.

With the 90-minute session being the only practice before this afternoon's qualifying and the race this evening, there was a lot of work for everyone to get through between qualifying sims, race runs on worn tyres and pitstop practice.

The Andretti Autosport-Hondas looked strong in race trim, and Ryan Hunter-Reay delivered a good mock qualifying lap with third fastest, ahead of Graham Rahal in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda.

Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson put their Chip Ganassi Racing-Hondas into fifth and sixth, but championship leader Alex Palou – who will take a nine-spot grid penalty for an early engine change following the blow-up at IMS last week – was only 17^th.

Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Felix Rosenqvist and Pato O’Ward ensured both Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolets were in the top 10, sandwiching the Andretti cars of James Hinchcliffe and Colton Herta.

Ahead of his first ever oval race, Romain Grosjean did a fine job – and turned 72 laps – to set the 11^th fastest time.

Sebastien Bourdais (AJ Foyt Racing) and Penske’s Will Power, the 2018 winner at the circuit, both turned more than 80 laps but languished down in 21st and 16th positions respectively.

Practice results

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	54	25.171		178.774
2	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	67	25.328	0.156	177.669
3	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	41	25.346	0.174	177.541
4	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	62	25.356	0.184	177.473
5	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	48	25.357	0.185	177.463
6	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	67	25.367	0.195	177.393
7	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	58	25.400	0.228	177.163
8	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	52	25.462	0.291	176.728
9	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport	50	25.463	0.291	176.726
10	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	51	25.466	0.295	176.701
11	Romain Grosjean	Dale Coyne Racing	72	25.480	0.308	176.608
12	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	50	25.496	0.325	176.493
13	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	63	25.514	0.342	176.373
14	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	51	25.514	0.343	176.370
15	Ed Jones	Dale Coyne Racing	57	25.555	0.383	176.091
16	Will Power	Team Penske	82	25.559	0.387	176.063
17	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	65	25.581	0.410	175.906
18	Conor Daly	Carlin	45	25.616	0.444	175.671
19	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	61	25.684	0.512	175.204
20	Tony Kanaan	Chip Ganassi Racing	55	25.764	0.593	174.658
21	Sébastien Bourdais	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	87	25.819	0.647	174.288
22	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	53	25.849	0.678	174.083
23	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	62	25.881	0.709	173.873
24	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	60	25.992	0.820	173.129
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