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IndyCar Road America: Rossi leads Herta in first practice

Alexander Rossi outpaced his rivals in opening practice at Road America, the venue where he last won an IndyCar race in 2019.

Alexander Rossi, Andretti Autosport Honda

Alexander Rossi, Andretti Autosport Honda

Gavin Baker / Motorsport Images

Despite a guaranteed 75 minutes of track time, most drivers remained on pitlane after their installation laps since they were yearning for another set of tyres. The teams were granted their practice Firestone alternates for this session, rather than second practice, but the drivers wanted rubber laid down to be most representative of the expected track conditions in qualifying tomorrow.

On primary tyres, Romain Grosjean of Andretti Autosport was the first to crack the 1m47s barrier with a 1m46.9302s, but team-mates Alexander Rossi and Colton Herta eclipsed him by over two-tenths of a second.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s latest Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson delivered a 1m46.8876s to sneak into third and also shade Grosjean, while behind the ex-F1 drivers were the Team Penske drivers Will Power, Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin, with defending Road America winner Alex Palou of Ganassi just ahead of the Kiwi.

As drivers started emerging on their red-walled tyres with little more than 20 minutes to go, Helio Castroneves spun his Meyer Shank Racing car down at Canada Corner and stalled, bringing out the red flag.

With 14 minutes to go, the green flag was waved once more, and Newgarden delivered a 1m46.1714s to go top, and lowered it next time by to 1m46.0594s. The second Meyer Shank car of Simon Pagenaud moved up to fourth and then third next time by.

Colton Herta, Andretti Autosport w/ Curb-Agajanian Honda

Colton Herta, Andretti Autosport w/ Curb-Agajanian Honda

Photo by: Brett Farmer / Motorsport Images

However, as everyone was out on red-walled tyres, the leader board quickly changed, with Herta bursting to the top with a 1m45.7361s.

Then Rossi’s second flyer on the softer tyres pushed him 0.1334s ahead of Herta with a 1m45.6027s, while Power’s 1m45.8592s took him to third, but was still a quarter second off Rossi’s benchmark. Shortly after, Ericsson went fastest of the Ganassi drivers to move ahead of him.

Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist both got their Arrow McLaren SP into the top dozen, split by Devlin DeFrancesco. Team-mate Grosjean was left with an unrepresentative red-tyre time as he had been on his second flyer when the session was red-flagged for Castroneves.

In the battle for rookie of the year honours, current leader Christian Lundgaard was fastest for Rahal Letterman Lanigan in 13th, while Callum Ilott was an impressive 15th for Juncos Hollinger, as he made his return to action after skipping the Detroit GP to rest his broken hand.

Simona De Silvestro’s return to IndyCar road course action for the first time since 2015 might look disappointing at first, in that she was 3.15s off the ultimate pace. However, her team Paretta Autosport is in a technical alliance with Ed Carpenter Racing, and she was 1.8s off Conor Daly and only 1s behind Rinus VeeKay.

Second practice begins on Saturday at 9.45am local time.

IndyCar Road America - FP1 results

Cla Driver Team Laps Time Gap Interval
1 United States Alexander Rossi United States Andretti Autosport 13 1'45.6027    
2 United States Colton Herta United States Andretti Autosport 14 1'45.7361 0.1334 0.1334
3 Sweden Marcus Ericsson United States Chip Ganassi Racing 15 1'45.8050 0.2023 0.0689
4 Australia Will Power United States Team Penske 14 1'45.8592 0.2565 0.0542
5 Spain Alex Palou United States Chip Ganassi Racing 17 1'45.9140 0.3113 0.0548
6 New Zealand Scott McLaughlin United States Team Penske 15 1'45.9316 0.3289 0.0176
7 New Zealand Scott Dixon United States Chip Ganassi Racing 15 1'46.0494 0.4467 0.1178
8 United States Josef Newgarden United States Team Penske 14 1'46.0594 0.4567 0.0100
9 France Simon Pagenaud United States Meyer Shank Racing 15 1'46.1108 0.5081 0.0514
10 Mexico Patricio O'Ward United States Arrow McLaren SP 14 1'46.3426 0.7399 0.2318
11 Canada Devlin DeFrancesco United States Andretti Autosport 21 1'46.3834 0.7807 0.0408
12 Sweden Felix Rosenqvist United States Arrow McLaren SP 13 1'46.5185 0.9158 0.1351
13 Denmark Christian Lundgaard United States Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 20 1'46.5510 0.9483 0.0325
14 France Romain Grosjean United States Andretti Autosport 17 1'46.6454 1.0427 0.0944
15 United Kingdom Callum Ilott Juncos Hollinger Racing 16 1'46.7679 1.1652 0.1225
16 United Kingdom Jack Harvey United States Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 14 1'46.9495 1.3468 0.1816
17 United States Conor Daly United States Ed Carpenter Racing 16 1'46.9676 1.3649 0.0181
18 United States Graham Rahal United States Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 13 1'46.9721 1.3694 0.0045
19 Japan Takuma Sato United States Dale Coyne Racing 15 1'47.0431 1.4404 0.0710
20 United States David Malukas Dale Coyne Racing with HMD 17 1'47.2820 1.6793 0.2389
21 United States Kyle Kirkwood United States A.J. Foyt Enterprises 19 1'47.2981 1.6954 0.0161
22 Netherlands Rinus van Kalmthout United States Ed Carpenter Racing 11 1'47.7352 2.1325 0.4371
23 United States Jimmie Johnson United States Chip Ganassi Racing 22 1'47.7692 2.1665 0.0340
24 Canada Dalton Kellett United States A.J. Foyt Enterprises 16 1'48.0727 2.4700 0.3035
25 Brazil Helio Castroneves United States Meyer Shank Racing 12 1'48.1719 2.5692 0.0992
26 Colombia Tatiana Calderon United States A.J. Foyt Enterprises 13 1'48.6710 3.0683 0.4991
27 Switzerland Simona de Silvestro Paretta Autosport 20 1'48.7490 3.1463 0.0780

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