In very difficult conditions on Fast Friday, with wind gusts of over 30mph and at qualifying boost – the twin BorgWarner turbos are turned up from 1.3- to 1.5-bar – even the seasoned veterans are struggling to complete a four-lap qualifying simulation run. As the peak grip goes away on the Firestones, it is exaggerating the effects of the severe headwinds down the front straight, which tends to pin the nose on turn-in, and then the tailwind down the back straights that allowed Johnson’s teammate Marcus Ericsson to clock 242.281mph in the Turn 3 speedtrap.
"He got away with that one."@JimmieJohnson makes contact with the turn 2 wall.
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Johnson himself had clocked 240mph down the back straight on his first flying lap which had been completed at an average of 229.058mph. But after dipping down low and arguably slightly early for Turn 2, he drifted up the track in a four-wheel drift, striking the SAFER barrier on exit. Thankfully it was quite a square hit that scraped up the rims of the two right-side tires. He immediately pitted.
“I've been trying to study,” said the NASCAR legend to Peacock afterward. “The wind direction is massive today.
“I felt like I had the corner made. I got square with the wall, but with the late exit and wind at my backside… I just needed six more inches.”
Asked whether it was the wind or the horsepower that was more of a challenge, Johnson replied: “The low downforce setting. I have a sense of what the car can do and what the car can do in the draft. This downforce setting is way less than anything I've felt before.
“Understanding how light the car is and where the grip is. That's why I'm going to keep running some laps to get used to it.”
Andretti Autosport-Honda’s Alexander Rossi has set the fastest lap so far, at 231.883mph, but it was his nearest challenger Pato O’Ward in an Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet, who has set the best four-lap average – 230.1115mph. Even so his fourth lap of 227.854mph was almost 4mph slower than his first lap of 231.798mph.
