IMS IndyCar: Newgarden leads raceday warm-up

Almost all drivers remained on Firestone’s harder primaries throughout a very busy 30-minute session, suggesting the teams are expecting the alternate tires to have a huge advantage come the race, and therefore had no wish to unnecessarily take life out of the softer rubber before the race begins.

Newgarden lapped in an impressive 70.9281sec despite using the hard compound an average of 123.793mph around the 2.439-mile road course.

The exception to the primary-only policy was AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy, who sent both Kyle Kirkwood and Dalton Kellett out on reds for a couple of laps at the end of the session, allowing Kirkwood to jump to second fastest, just 0.0614sec behind Newgarden, and 0.042 ahead of Christian Lundgaard of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda. This is a special track for Lundgaard, as it is where he made his IndyCar race debut with RLL last summer, shocking everyone by qualifying fourth. He will roll off sixth for this afternoon’s race.

Andretti Autosport-Honda pairing Alexander Rossi and Colton Herta were fourth and fifth fastest ahead of Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Callum Ilott, the fastest of the Ganassi drivers (in this session and qualifying) Alex Palou, polesitter Felix Rosenqvist of Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet.

Five-time IMS road course winner Will Power, who will start fourth today, was ninth ahead of longtime rival Scott Dixon, who will have to claw his way up from 20^th this afternoon.

The 85-lap Gallagher Grand Prix will get the green flag at 12.30pm local (Eastern) time.

P	Name	FTime	Diff	FL	Laps	FSpeed	Engine	Tire	Team
1	Josef Newgarden	1:10.9281	-	12	15	123.793	Chevy	P	Team Penske
2	Kyle Kirkwood	1:10.9895	0.0614	16	18	123.686	Chevy	A	AJ Foyt Enterprises
3	Christian Lundgaard	1:11.0317	0.1036	14	21	123.612	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
4	Alexander Rossi	1:11.0529	0.1248	11	19	123.576	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport
5	Colton Herta	1:11.0530	0.1249	13	18	123.575	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
6	Callum Ilott	1:11.0661	0.1380	12	18	123.553	Chevy	P	Juncos Hollinger Racing
7	Alex Palou	1:11.0759	0.1478	9	20	123.536	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
8	Felix Rosenqvist	1:11.0929	0.1648	13	20	123.506	Chevy	P	Arrow McLaren SP
9	Will Power	1:11.0969	0.1688	9	22	123.499	Chevy	P	Team Penske
10	Scott Dixon	1:11.0981	0.1700	14	19	123.497	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
11	Marcus Ericsson	1:11.1238	0.1957	17	17	123.452	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
12	Rinus VeeKay	1:11.2613	0.3332	6	18	123.214	Chevy	P	Ed Carpenter Racing
13	Graham Rahal	1:11.2981	0.3700	14	21	123.151	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
14	Jack Harvey	1:11.3265	0.3984	14	19	123.102	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
15	Pato O'Ward	1:11.4036	0.4755	19	21	122.969	Chevy	P	Arrow McLaren SP
16	Scott McLaughlin	1:11.4075	0.4794	7	22	122.962	Chevy	P	Team Penske
17	Romain Grosjean	1:11.5888	0.6607	17	22	122.650	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport
18	Simon Pagenaud	1:11.6143	0.6862	14	20	122.607	Honda	P	Meyer Shank Racing
19	Devlin DeFrancesco	1:11.6641	0.7360	8	18	122.522	Honda	P	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
20	David Malukas	1:11.7053	0.7772	12	23	122.451	Honda	P	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
21	Conor Daly	1:11.7370	0.8089	8	19	122.397	Chevy	P	Ed Carpenter Racing
22	Dalton Kellett	1:11.8948	0.9667	17	20	122.128	Chevy	A	AJ Foyt Enterprises
23	Jimmie Johnson	1:12.0338	1.1057	15	18	121.893	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
24	Helio Castroneves	1:12.0421	1.1140	14	19	121.879	Honda	P	Meyer Shank Racing
25	Takuma Sato	1:12.0941	1.1660	9	20	121.791	Honda	P	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR