Road America IndyCar: Grosjean tops practice, Magnussen 23rd on debut

Making his first visit to the 4.014-mile circuit, Grosjean clocked a best time of 1m47.678s to rebound well from a difficult weekend in Detroit in which he retired from both races.

His best effort was 0.124s quicker than 2012 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay's Andretti Autosport machine, while Team Penske's two-time champion and 2018 Road America winner Josef Newgarden was a mere 0.04s behind.

Alex Palou, who scored his first ever IndyCar podium at the Elkhart Lake track last year with Coyne, was the best of the Chip Ganassi Racing stable in fourth on a 1min47.851s.

Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing) and Colton Herta's Andretti Autosport entry were also within half a second of top spot in fifth and sixth positions, with St. Petersburg winner Herta surviving an off-track excursions at the end of a flying lap.

Sebastien Bourdais, who won the final Champ Car race at Road America in 2007, was seventh fastest for AJ Foyt Racing ahead of Penske rookie Scott McLaughlin.

Oliver Askew made a strong first impression on the Ed Carpenter Racing team by clocking the ninth quickest time.

The 2019 Indy Lights champion, who lost his drive with Arrow McLaren SP only to return to the team in last weekend in Detroit to sub for Felix Rosenqvist in race two, has been called up by ECR to replace Rinus VeeKay after the Dutchman was injured in a cycling accident.

Despite not being granted the extra set of tyres that all rookies get in the opening practice session, Askew was just 0.6s off Grosjean.

Will Power, another to try out the circuit limits, completed the top 10 for Team Penske, while championship leader Pato O’Ward could only muster the 11th quickest time for Arrow McLaren SP.

His stand-in team-mate for the weekend in Rosenqvist's continued absence, as he continues to recover from his sizeable race one shunt, Magnussen clocked the 23rd fastest time on his IndyCar debut.

Kevin Magnussen, Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Without any test experience of the Dallara IR-18, the Dane lapped 2.184s slower than Grosjean, his team-mate at Haas between 2018 and 2020.

NASCAR regular Cody Ware, another driver making his debut in a second Coyne-RWR entry, was 22nd fastest, while Coyne season regular Ed Jones was unable to take part in practice because of a small fire.

Tomorrow’s second practice begins at 10.10am local time, with qualifying following at 1.30pm and final practice at 4.30pm.

Results

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Romain Grosjean	Dale Coyne Racing with RWR	1'47.678
2	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1'47.802	0.124
3	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'47.841	0.163
4	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'47.851	0.173
5	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'48.093	0.415
6	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport with Curb-Agajanian	1'48.140	0.462
7	Sébastien Bourdais	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'48.248	0.570
8	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	1'48.284	0.606
9	Oliver Askew	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'48.300	0.621
10	Will Power	Team Penske	1'48.343	0.665
11	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	1'48.425	0.747
12	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'48.441	0.763
13	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'48.456	0.778
14	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'48.662	0.984
15	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	1'48.669	0.990
16	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1'48.737	1.059
17	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	1'48.983	1.305
18	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'49.024	1.346
19	Max Chilton	Carlin	1'49.367	1.689
20	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport	1'49.535	1.857
21	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'50.076	2.398
22	Cody Ware	Dale Coyne Racing with RWR	1'50.298	2.620
23	Kevin Magnussen	Arrow McLaren SP	1'50.492	2.814
24	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'50.494	2.816
25	Ed Jones	Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan
View full results