St. Pete IndyCar: Herta, Kirkwood top raceday warm-up

There was plenty of experimentation with tires in the 78 degree heat and increasing humidity under cloudy skies. Firestone’s guayule-sidewalled tires had a noticeable peak for one lap – two by the gentlest driver/car combinations – but drivers and race engineers still needed to know how long they could make them last in what will be a 100-lap race dominated by the primary tire.

Colton Herta, who will start from the outside of the front row alongside his Andretti Autosport teammate Romain Grosjean, was also seen experimenting with the inside line into the wide Turn 1. The paint on the runway of Albert Whitted Airport can make outbraking maneuvers particularly difficult, with rubber build-up off-line exacerbating the problem.

Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, who will start from 14^th this afternoon, looked particularly strong and consistent on alternates but a major caveat there is that (unlike in qualifying), he seemed to have clear track much more than his rivals.

Late in the session, Chip Ganassi Racing’s 2021 champion Alex Palou was spotted practicing restarts on primary tires, gauging how much grip there was when getting on the power through the long horseshoe-shaped final turn.

Herta and new teammate Kyle Kirkwood topped the session, ahead of Scott Dixon who sideswiped the Turn 3 wall with three minutes to go, but stayed out with apparently no structural damage.

Helio Castroneves of Meyer Shank Racing was fourth ahead of the Juncos Hollinger Racing-Chevrolet of Callum Ilott, Newgarden and Palou.

Late in the session, defending IndyCar champion Will Power jumped to eighth running on Firestone’s primary tires, while teammate Newgarden and Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist visited the Turn 10 escape road.

The 20^th running of the GP of St. Petersburg will get the green flag at 12.30pm local (Eastern) time.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	20	1'00.5886		106.951
2	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	22	1'00.7213	0.1327	106.717
3	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	22	1'00.8377	0.2491	106.513
4	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	24	1'00.9833	0.3947	106.259
5	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	26	1'01.0320	0.4434	106.174
6	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	26	1'01.0405	0.4519	106.159
7	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	22	1'01.1932	0.6046	105.894
8	Will Power	Team Penske	26	1'01.2204	0.6318	105.847
9	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	22	1'01.2490	0.6604	105.798
10	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	26	1'01.2596	0.6710	105.779
11	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	26	1'01.2888	0.7002	105.729
12	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	23	1'01.3403	0.7517	105.640
13	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	19	1'01.3780	0.7894	105.575
14	Marcus Armstrong	Chip Ganassi Racing	26	1'01.4183	0.8297	105.506
15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	22	1'01.4406	0.8520	105.468
16	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	23	1'01.4864	0.8978	105.389
17	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	24	1'01.4935	0.9049	105.377
18	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	26	1'01.5159	0.9273	105.339
19	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	22	1'01.5381	0.9495	105.301
20	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	23	1'01.5382	0.9496	105.300
21	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	26	1'01.8739	1.2853	104.729
22	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger Racing	19	1'01.9456	1.3570	104.608
23	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	24	1'02.0744	1.4858	104.391
24	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	23	1'02.1967	1.6081	104.186
25	Ray Robb	Dale Coyne Racing	21	1'02.5812	1.9926	103.545
26	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	23	1'02.7215	2.1329	103.314
27	Benjamin Pedersen	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	20	1'03.1406	2.5520	102.628
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