David Malukas of Dale Coyne Racing with HMD-Honda was the first driver to duck under the 1-minute barrier, with a 59.9263sec, and he was soon joined by Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet, who was just 0.0374sec slower.
Malukas’ fellow rookies took advantage of their extra set of Firestone primaries to hit the track early in the 75-minute session, and so his former Indy Lights title rival Kyle Kirkwood got within 0.0222sec.
Then Callum Ilott on his seventh lap ran a 59.6811sec to go fastest by almost quarter of a second in the Juncos Hollinger-Chevy at the track on which he made his IndyCar debut last year.
After 25mins, a red flag went out when one of the big screens facing the front straight and the suites above the pitlane suddenly fell askew. It would have taken a strange quirk of fate for it to fall onto the track, but it wasn’t worth taking the risk. Mercifully, IndyCar eventually stopped the clock so the 25 drivers weren’t penalized for a weird and elementary issue outside their control.
Some 1hr20mins later, action resumed and Romain Grosjean of Andretti Autosport-Honda and championship contender Marcus Ericsson of Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda – for this race in almost identical PNC Bank colors as teammate Scott Dixon – were quickly into the 59s.
Grosjean further improved to hit top spot with a 59.5997, an average speed of 118.631mph around the 1.964-mile road course in Portland, OR, but he was soon usurped by two of his teammates, Alexander Rossi and 2019 Portland polesitter Colton Herta.
Rossi then had a high-speed off at Turn 6 but managed to regain the track, but then 2019 Portland winner Takuma Sato went off at Turn 11 in the Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports, burying the front left of the car in the tire wall.
The session resumed with 28mins to go, enough time for Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet and Josef Newgarden to move into the top five – but five minutes later Helio Castroneves spun at Turn 2 – for the second time – and out came the red again.
Again action resumed, and Scott McLaughlin moved his Penske into fifth, but then O’Ward spun off at Turn 5, without touching a barrier but bringing out another red.
There were 11mins left when the green flew again, with most drivers hitting the track on the red sidewalled Firestone alternate compound. Ericsson went quickest with a 59.2860, but Newgarden went over half a second faster, with a 58.7574, then a scintillating 58.5769 – an average of 120.703mph.
McLaughlin looked set to be his closest challenger with a lap 0.1387sec slower than his teammate, but then Malukas split the Penske pair. The third Penske of championship leader Power was unable to hit the top three as he was held up by lapped traffic in both laps when his reds were at their peak, but his frustration was mild compared with Grosjean, who suffered transmission issues just before he was going to make a red-tire run.
