Texas IndyCar: Newgarden leads final practice, Harvey shunts

Harvey, who has qualified only 24^th yet was fastest of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Hondas in a strangely poor event for the team so far, was on his 26^th lap of the 1.5-mile track in final practice when his car understeered in the middle of Turn 2.

Harvey downchanged, the #45 Hy-Vee car started oversteering, and its right-rear wheel appeared barely to kiss the wall, but it was enough to unsettle the car and wrench it out of Harvey’s control. It looped around and across the track to make heavy contact with the inside wall and then slide along the back straight to Turn 3.

Thankfully, the likeable Harvey, who struck a wall in St. Petersburg, too, was able to step from the car unaided, and the RLL team started to build up the spare tub – Harvey’s car for the Indy 500, as NBC Sports revealed – for tomorrow’s XPEL 375.

By contrast, Harvey’s teammates had a somewhat reassuring session, their cars clearly quick in the draft, with rookie Christian Lundgaard fourth and Graham Rahal seventh, but coming from the back of the field will be difficult without taking major strategy risks, given the difficulty of passing here.

That said, before this final practice, seven drivers did endeavor to open up a second lane through the turns with a 30min session that involved Helio Castroneves, Will Power, Takuma Sato, Rahal, Ed Carpenter, Pato O’Ward and polesitter Felix Rosenqvist running the high line – exceptionally high line in the case of Castroneves. The results appeared somewhat inconclusive, in that the drivers could keep their cars away from the wall, but were still having to feather the throttle in order to make it through, thus ensuring the high line was slower.

Come FP2 proper, Team Penske-Chevrolet’s two-time IndyCar champion Newgarden went to the top of the speed charts on his 23^rd of 73 laps, whereas his closest pursuer Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda set his best time in the draft on his 60^th of 65 laps.

Polesitter Felix Rosenqvist proved his car was stable in the draft with third fastest ahead of Lundgaard, while Colton Herta led the Andretti Autosport-Honda contingent in fifth.

Takuma Sato of Dale Coyne Racing with RWR-Honda proved his quali pace could be backed up by race pace with sixth fastest.

As well as Lundgaard, two other drivers relatively unfamiliar with Texas Motor Speedway – aside from testing – Romain Grosjean and Devlin De Francesco, crept into the Top 10, the latter surviving an alarming tail-happy moment out of Turn 4 to draft past his new teammate.

Jimmie Johnson, who will be making his oval IndyCar debut, was a commendable 13^th on a track where he won seven times in a NASCAR Cup car. He was also the busiest driver this afternoon, turning 100 laps.

Green flag for the XPEL 375 waves at 11.45 local (Central) time on Sunday.

P	Name	FTime	FL	Laps	FSpeed	Engine	Team
1	Josef Newgarden	23.2354	23	73	223.108	Chevy	Team Penske
2	Scott Dixon	23.2752	60	65	222.726	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
3	Felix Rosenqvist	23.2819	57	93	222.662	Chevy	Arrow McLaren SP
4	Christian Lundgaard	23.3730	82	89	221.794	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
5	Colton Herta	23.3776	43	74	221.751	Honda	Andretti Autosport
6	Takuma Sato	23.3829	47	89	221.700	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
7	Graham Rahal	23.3916	32	63	221.618	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
8	Helio Castroneves	23.4041	38	71	221.500	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
9	Romain Grosjean	23.4219	38	84	221.331	Honda	Andretti Autosport
10	Devlin DeFrancesco	23.4341	47	81	221.216	Honda	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
11	Alex Palou	23.4511	19	55	221.056	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
12	Pato O'Ward	23.4749	15	75	220.832	Chevy	Arrow McLaren SP
13	Jimmie Johnson	23.4850	63	100	220.737	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
14	Marcus Ericsson	23.5096	72	76	220.506	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
15	Kyle Kirkwood	23.5776	32	68	219.870	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
16	Scott McLaughlin	23.5975	8	76	219.684	Chevy	Team Penske
17	Alexander Rossi	23.6282	4	75	219.399	Honda	Andretti Autosport
18	Rinus VeeKay	23.6347	5	88	219.339	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
19	Will Power	23.6438	40	83	219.254	Chevy	Team Penske
20	Simon Pagenaud	23.6674	33	55	219.035	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
21	Conor Daly	23.6841	10	56	218.881	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
22	Callum Ilott	23.7242	7	76	218.511	Chevy	Juncos Hollinger Racing
23	Ed Carpenter	23.7555	3	57	218.223	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
24	David Malukas	23.7736	28	89	218.057	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
25	Jack Harvey	23.8260	6	25	217.577	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
26	Dalton Kellett	23.9263	2	41	216.665	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
27	JR Hildebrand	24.0716	4	44	215.358	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises