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Motorsport
Motorsport
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David Malsher-Lopez

Texas IndyCar: McLaughlin leads opening practice

In the cool of the morning – the session ran from 8.00-9.00am local time – and with IndyCar having allowed extra downforce components this weekend, and drivers able to catch some strong tows, speeds looked startlingly good in the opening session.

Scott McLaughlin, who qualified and finished second in last year’s IndyCar round at TMS, was swiftly up to speed, clocking a 223.747mph lap in the #3 Team Penske entry, which equates to 23.169sec around the 1.5-mile oval in Fort Worth.

Chevrolet looked strong at this stage, with Pato O’Ward and Alexander Rossi also turning 223mph laps in their Arrow McLarens to run second and third, ahead of Colton Herta of Andretti Autosport-Honda.

Josef Newgarden, Penske’s defending Texas winner, was also looking strong, just ahead of Takuma Sato – in his first outing for Chip Ganassi Racing – and Ganassi’s five-time Texas winner, Scott Dixon.

Dixon briefly vaulted his part-time teammate but then Sato moved up to fifth, second fastest Honda driver, before pitting.

Also impressing at this stage was rookie Benjamin Pedersen, who with 15mins remaining, was in 11th for local team, AJ Foyt Racing. He eventually fell to 18th, but teammate Santino Ferrucci took twelfth.

With 12mins to go, Felix Rosenqvist, last year’s Texas polesitter, made it three Arrow McLarens in the top five. Then with under five minutes to go, series sophomore Callum Ilott sprung his Juncos Hollinger Racing-Chevrolet into sixth, until Devlin DeFrancesco pushed him down with fifth best time.

The next time the cars are on track will be 11.15am local (Central) time for qualifying. There will then be a “high-line” practice to try and open up more grooves for tomorrow’s race, followed by an hour’s final practice.

P

Name

FTime

Diff

Gap

FL

Laps

FSpeed

Engine

Team

1

Scott McLaughlin

23.1690

23.1690

--.----

14

40

223.747

Chevy

Team Penske

2

Pato O'Ward

23.1928

0.0238

0.0238

5

32

223.518

Chevy

Arrow McLaren

3

Alexander Rossi

23.1980

0.0290

0.0052

5

34

223.468

Chevy

Arrow McLaren

4

Colton Herta

23.2135

0.0445

0.0155

34

35

223.318

Honda

Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian

5

Devlin DeFrancesco

23.2232

0.0542

0.0097

34

34

223.225

Honda

Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport

6

Felix Rosenqvist

23.2557

0.0867

0.0325

39

50

222.913

Chevy

Arrow McLaren

7

Callum Ilott

23.2586

0.0896

0.0029

44

44

222.885

Chevy

Juncos Hollinger Racing

8

Takuma Sato

23.2665

0.0975

0.0079

30

43

222.810

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

9

Josef Newgarden

23.3005

0.1315

0.0340

12

24

222.484

Chevy

Team Penske

10

Scott Dixon

23.3205

0.1515

0.0200

19

34

222.294

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

11

Simon Pagenaud

23.3474

0.1784

0.0269

30

47

222.038

Honda

Meyer Shank Racing

12

Santino Ferrucci

23.3516

0.1826

0.0042

35

37

221.998

Chevy

AJ Foyt Enterprises

13

Alex Palou

23.3638

0.1948

0.0122

34

37

221.882

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

14

Will Power

23.3792

0.2102

0.0154

24

33

221.736

Chevy

Team Penske

15

David Malukas

23.3798

0.2108

0.0006

37

39

221.730

Honda

Dale Coyne Racing with HMD

16

Romain Grosjean

23.3873

0.2183

0.0075

32

36

221.659

Honda

Andretti Autosport

17

Helio Castroneves

23.3949

0.2259

0.0076

33

35

221.587

Honda

Meyer Shank Racing

18

Benjamin Pedersen

23.4054

0.2364

0.0105

14

38

221.487

Chevy

AJ Foyt Enterprises

19

Marcus Ericsson

23.4907

0.3217

0.0853

34

36

220.683

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

20

Conor Daly

23.5082

0.3392

0.0175

38

38

220.519

Chevy

Ed Carpenter Racing

21

Rinus VeeKay

23.5164

0.3474

0.0082

32

33

220.442

Chevy

Ed Carpenter Racing

22

Sting Ray Robb

23.5230

0.3540

0.0066

9

41

220.380

Honda

Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR

23

Kyle Kirkwood

23.5449

0.3759

0.0219

37

38

220.175

Honda

Andretti Autosport

24

Agustin Canapino

23.5452

0.3762

0.0003

19

30

220.172

Chevy

Juncos Holling Racing

25

Ed Carpenter

23.5610

0.3920

0.0158

17

29

220.025

Chevy

Ed Carpenter Racing

26

Graham Rahal

23.6066

0.4376

0.0456

39

45

219.600

Honda

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

27

Jack Harvey

23.6121

0.4431

0.0055

40

40

219.548

Honda

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

28

Christian Lundgaard

24.0019

0.8329

0.3898

29

42

215.983

Honda

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

 

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