IndyCar Texas: Dixon tops final practice at Texas Motor Speedway

Before the final hour got underway, the field was split in two to practice running the high line, and it went largely incident-free, until Conor Daly had a spin out of Turn 4, thankfully keeping his Ed Carpenter Racing car off the wall. Rookie Benjamin Pedersen in the #55 AJ Foyt Racing machine had to take swift avoiding action, but he did this without problem.

Through the hour that followed, Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren and defending Texas winner Josef Newgarden of Team Penske, appeared the most comfortable at running the high and low line, and seemed able to make their tyres last.

But it was Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing, who will start from the outside of the front row, who snuck in with a 222.378mph lap to shade Newgarden by only 0.0615s, which equates to 0.6mph around the TMS 1.5-mile oval.

Ganassi’s newest recruit, Takuma Sato, also bolted on a set of fresh Firestones to claim third fastest, ahead of Scott McLaughlin of Penske and the fastest Andretti Autosport entrant, Colton Herta.

Defending IndyCar champion Will Power made it three Penskes in the top six, ahead of the impressive Juncos Hollinger Racing entry of Callum Ilott.

Today’s pole-winner Felix Rosenqvist was the fastest Arrow McLaren in eighth, with his team-mates Alexander Rossi and O’Ward in 11^th and 13^th, while Alex Palou and Marcus Ericsson ensured all four Ganassi cars were in the Top 10.

There were no yellows in the final hour, the rookies Agustin Canapino (Juncos Hollinger), Sting Ray Robb (Dale Coyne Racing with RWR) and Pedersen staying out of trouble and clocking laps good enough for 15^th, 17^th and 24^th respectively. Robb did have one scary moment when he clipped the grass on the dog-leg front ‘straight’ with his left rear, but he held the moment with aplomb.

Helio Castroneves was the only driver of the 28 entered to turn no laps in practice, having also missed the majority of the high-line practice due to a failed bearing.

Weather allowing, tomorrow’s 250-lap PPG 375 starts at 11.15am local (Central) time.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	18	23.8089		217.734
2	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	25	23.8958	0.0869	216.942
3	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	17	24.0058	0.1969	215.948
4	Benjamin Pedersen	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	24	24.1504	0.3415	214.655
5	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	25	24.2108	0.4019	214.119
6	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	28	24.3449	0.5360	212.940
7	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	25	24.5007	0.6918	211.586
8	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	22	24.5195	0.7106	211.424
9	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	27	24.6553	0.8464	210.259
10	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	19	24.6579	0.8490	210.237
11	Takuma Sato	Chip Ganassi Racing	16	24.7124	0.9035	209.773
12	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	24	24.7155	0.9066	209.747
13	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	19	24.7364	0.9275	209.570
14	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	17	24.7702	0.9613	209.284
15	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	21	24.8639	1.0550	208.495
16	Will Power	Team Penske	26	24.8889	1.0800	208.286
17	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	27	24.9404	1.1315	207.856
18	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	14	24.9530	1.1441	207.751
19	Ray Robb	Dale Coyne Racing	21	24.9617	1.1528	207.678
20	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger Racing	27	25.0125	1.2036	207.256
21	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	22	25.0741	1.2652	206.747
22	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	25	25.1373	1.3284	206.227
23	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	17	25.1789	1.3700	205.887
24	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	10	25.2549	1.4460	205.267
25	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	27	25.3383	1.5294	204.591
26	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	17	25.4660	1.6571	203.566
27	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	13	25.4943	1.6854	203.340
28	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	2	26.7567	2.9478	193.746
View full results

P	Name	FTime	Diff	Gap	Laps	FSpeed	Engine	Team
1	Scott Dixon	23.3117	23.3117	--.----	84	222.378	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
2	Josef Newgarden	23.3732	0.0615	0.0615	106	221.792	Chevy	Team Penske
3	Takuma Sato	23.4579	0.1462	0.0847	74	220.992	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
4	Scott McLaughlin	23.4712	0.1595	0.0133	95	220.866	Chevy	Team Penske
5	Colton Herta	23.4775	0.1658	0.0063	89	220.807	Honda	Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
6	Will Power	23.5014	0.1897	0.0239	98	220.583	Chevy	Team Penske
7	Callum Ilott	23.5143	0.2026	0.0129	69	220.462	Chevy	Juncos Hollinger Racing
8	Felix Rosenqvist	23.5513	0.2396	0.0370	93	220.115	Chevy	Arrow McLaren
9	Alex Palou	23.5778	0.2661	0.0265	88	219.868	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
10	Marcus Ericsson	23.5986	0.2869	0.0208	100	219.674	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
11	Alexander Rossi	23.6260	0.3143	0.0274	81	219.419	Chevy	Arrow McLaren
12	Romain Grosjean	23.6644	0.3527	0.0384	70	219.063	Honda	Andretti Autosport
13	Pato O'Ward	23.6960	0.3843	0.0316	96	218.771	Chevy	Arrow McLaren
14	David Malukas	23.7208	0.4091	0.0248	87	218.542	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
15	Agustin Canapino	23.7425	0.4308	0.0217	59	218.343	Chevy	Juncos Holling Racing
16	Kyle Kirkwood	23.7530	0.4413	0.0105	56	218.246	Honda	Andretti Autosport
17	Sting Ray Robb	23.7588	0.4471	0.0058	92	218.193	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
18	Simon Pagenaud	23.7943	0.4826	0.0355	49	217.867	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
19	Christian Lundgaard	23.8204	0.5087	0.0261	76	217.629	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
20	Conor Daly	23.8246	0.5129	0.0042	49	217.590	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
21	Ed Carpenter	23.8428	0.5311	0.0182	74	217.424	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
22	Devlin DeFrancesco	23.8465	0.5348	0.0037	67	217.390	Honda	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
23	Graham Rahal	23.8844	0.5727	0.0379	71	217.045	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
24	Benjamin Pedersen	23.9273	0.6156	0.0429	60	216.656	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
25	Santino Ferrucci	23.9294	0.6177	0.0021	75	216.637	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
26	Rinus VeeKay	23.9527	0.6410	0.0233	92	216.427	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
27	Jack Harvey	24.0545	0.7428	0.1018	59	215.511	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
28	Helio Castroneves	No Time	---	---	---	---	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing