IndyCar Texas: McLaughlin heads O'Ward in opening practice

McLaughlin's best effort pipped Arrow McLaren's Pato O'Ward by 0.0238s around the 1.5 mile oval, with O'Ward's team-mate Alexander Rossi third fastest.

In the cool of the morning and with IndyCar having allowed extra downforce components this weekend, and drivers able to catch some strong tows, speeds looked startlingly good.

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 23.169s around the 1.5-mile oval in Fort Worth.

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

Josef Newgarden, Team Penske Chevrolet (Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images)

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 team-mate but then Sato moved up to fifth, second fastest Honda driver, before pitting.

Also impressing at this stage was rookie Benjamin Pedersen, who with 15 minutes remaining, was in 11th for local team, AJ Foyt Racing. He eventually fell to 18th, but team-mate Santino Ferrucci took 12th.

With 12 minutes 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 entry 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.

Results: Practice 1 

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	40	23.1690		223.747
2	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	32	23.1928	0.0238	223.518
3	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	34	23.1980	0.0290	223.468
4	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	35	23.2135	0.0445	223.318
5	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	34	23.2232	0.0542	223.225
6	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	50	23.2557	0.0867	222.913
7	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	44	23.2586	0.0896	222.885
8	Takuma Sato	Chip Ganassi Racing	43	23.2665	0.0975	222.810
9	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	24	23.3005	0.1315	222.484
10	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	34	23.3205	0.1515	222.294
11	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	47	23.3474	0.1784	222.038
12	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	37	23.3516	0.1826	221.998
13	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	37	23.3638	0.1948	221.882
14	Will Power	Team Penske	33	23.3792	0.2102	221.736
15	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	39	23.3798	0.2108	221.730
16	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	36	23.3873	0.2183	221.659
17	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	35	23.3949	0.2259	221.587
18	Benjamin Pedersen	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	38	23.4054	0.2364	221.487
19	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	36	23.4907	0.3217	220.683
20	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	38	23.5082	0.3392	220.519
21	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	33	23.5164	0.3474	220.442
22	Ray Robb	Dale Coyne Racing	41	23.5230	0.3540	220.380
23	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	38	23.5449	0.3759	220.175
24	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger Racing	30	23.5452	0.3762	220.172
25	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	29	23.5610	0.3920	220.025
26	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	45	23.6066	0.4376	219.600
27	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	40	23.6121	0.4431	219.548
28	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	42	24.0019	0.8329	215.983
View full results