IndyCar Iowa: Oval ace Newgarden fastest in first practice

Newgarden, this year’s Indianapolis 500 winner, topped the 90-minute session around the 7/8-mile oval with a best lap of 18.242s, a speed of 176.428mph. He has led 1,056 laps and has four wins to his name in 12 starts here.

Ed Carpenter set the early pace at 172.678mph for his own team, 0.3mph ahead of series dominator Alex Palou (Chip Ganassi Racing). The latter’s team-mate Marcus Ericsson then took over P1 at the 10-minute mark with 173.811mph.

A flurry of quickest laps then unfolded from Ryan Hunter-Reay (ECR), Colton Herta (Andretti Autosport) and Newgarden, with the latter the first into the 176mph bracket with 176.428mph, which would remain as the quickest time of practice.

Teams spent much of the session evaluating tire degradation, with cars on used tires losing massive speed on Iowa’s well-worn asphalt. Even Newgarden was lapping over 25mph off his fastest time.

Agustin Canapino brought out the first yellow just after the halfway point when he spun his Juncos Hollinger Racing entry at Turn 1 after lighting up the tires exiting the pits, fortunately not quite into the path of Alexander Rossi’s Arrow McLaren.

Conor Daly, who was again subbing for the sidelined Simon Pagenaud at Meyer Shank Racing, was one of the few to take new rubber in the middle of the session, jumping to fourth with a lap of 174.003mph.

With one-third of the session to go, more new tires appeared: Ericsson took second at 175.887mph and Pato O’Ward – whose Arrow McLaren team was one of the few not to test here – went P4 with 175.470mph. He then displayed strong 5-lap and 10-lap pace on his run.

Herta came close to grazing the wall at Turn 4 with 20 minutes remaining but got away with it. His team-mate Romain Grosjean then had a near miss with Palou at Turn 3.

Inside the final 10 minutes, a quick second yellow was thrown as Santino Ferrucci ran high through Turn 2 in his AJ Foyt Racing entry.

Penske’s Scott McLaughlin took new tires at the resumption and leapt to P2 with 175.968mph, 0.0477s off team-mate Newgarden, which works out at 0.5mph. Takuma Sato did likewise, taking sixth with 175.288mph, and Toronto winner Christian Lundgaard (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing) took seventh in the final two minutes.

Ericsson, who was third fastest, completed the most laps at 126.

Qualifying starts at 8:30am local time (9:30am ET) on Saturday, where the grids for the races will be set by each driver’s first and second tours of a two-lap run.

Cla	Nº	Driver	Car / Engine	Time	Delay	Laps
1	2	Josef Newgarden	Dallara/Chevrolet	18.2420		121
2	3	Scott McLaughlin	Dallara/Chevrolet	18.2897	0.0477	116
3	8	Marcus Ericsson	Dallara/Honda	18.2992	0.0572	126
4	26	Colton Herta	Dallara/Honda	18.3363	0.0943	77
5	5	Patricio O'Ward	Dallara/Chevrolet	18.3416	0.0996	101
6	11	Takuma Sato	Dallara/Honda	18.3606	0.1186	97
7	45	C.Lundgaard	Dallara/Honda	18.4579	0.2159	106
8	20	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Dallara/Chevrolet	18.4749	0.2329	97
9	60	Conor Daly	Dallara/Honda	18.4962	0.2542	74
10	9	Scott Dixon	Dallara/Honda	18.5026	0.2606	122
11	30	Jack Harvey	Dallara/Honda	18.5287	0.2867	107
12	12	Will Power	Dallara/Chevrolet	18.5735	0.3315	116
13	06	H.Castroneves	Dallara/Honda	18.5946	0.3526	84
14	7	Alexander Rossi	Dallara/Chevrolet	18.5957	0.3537	103
15	10	Alex Palou	Dallara/Honda	18.6027	0.3607	101
16	33	Ed Carpenter	Dallara/Chevrolet	18.6194	0.3774	81
17	28	Romain Grosjean	Dallara/Honda	18.6226	0.3806	102
18	18	David Malukas	Dallara/Honda	18.6715	0.4295	116
19	29	D.Defrancesco	Dallara/Honda	18.6826	0.4406	83
20	15	Graham Rahal	Dallara/Honda	18.7234	0.4814	120
21	21	R.van Kalmthout	Dallara/Chevrolet	18.7346	0.4926	94
22	27	Kyle Kirkwood	Dallara/Honda	18.7825	0.5405	72
23	77	Callum Ilott	Dallara/Chevrolet	18.8539	0.6119	84
24	78	Agustín Canapino	Dallara/Chevrolet	18.9816	0.7396	88
25	14	Santino Ferrucci	Dallara/Chevrolet	19.0233	0.7813	110
26	6	Felix Rosenqvist	Dallara/Chevrolet	19.0974	0.8554	93
27	51	Sting Ray Robb	Dallara/Honda	19.1447	0.9027	83
28	55	B.Pedersen	Dallara/Chevrolet	19.3157	1.0737	92