St. Pete IndyCar: Dixon leads Herta in opening practice

The first red flag of the session was caused by Benjamin Pedersen locking up into Turn 4, the car trying to swivel left, and making hard contact with its left front wing against the wall.

The second red flag was caused by a concrete patch of the track on the exit of fifth-gear Turn 3 coming up, and needing clearing. By then the remaining three rookies – Marcus Armstrong (Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda), Sting Ray Robb (Dale Coyne Racing with RWR-Honda) and Agustin Canapino (Juncos Hollinger Racing-Chevrolet) – had laid down their first five laps, since newbies are granted an extra set of tires.

Following the red flag, most of the top drivers immediately hit the track, and 2021 Indy Lights champion Kyle Kirkwood hit top spot with a 62.6101 for Andretti Autosport-Honda.

There was then briefly a Swedish 1-2, with Felix Rosenqvist of Arrow McLaren –Chevrolet ahead of Marcus Ericsson (Ganassi), until Ericsson’s teammate, 2021 champion Alex Palou lowered the benchmark to 62.2118sec – first driver into the 104mph laps.

Kirkwood was a long way from being done, though, and delivered a 61.8019sec on his seventh lap, with teammate Romain Grosjean going second, albeit 0.3sec behind.

The third red emerged with 43mins remaining, caused by Simon Pagenaud spinning his Meyer Shank Racing-Honda into the Turn 4 escape road and then stalling.

Team Penske-Chevrolet’s defending had an alarming tail-out moment exiting the penultimate corner after damaging a right-rear toelink against a wall. That was easily fixed, and he wasted little time in moving into the top four once back on track.

Colton Herta made it in an Andretti 1-2-3 with his first representative flyer, albeit 0.2777 off Kirkwood, who had gotten his best mark down to 61.6851sec.

That left a nice hole for David Malukas to fill with his Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports-Honda to get within 0.18sec of his old Lights sparring partner Kirkwood.

With 16mins to go, Christian Lundgaard smacked the Turn 3 wall hard enough in the #45 Hy-Vee Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda to end his session early although he limped back to the pits without assistance. Teammate Graham Rahal, however, who had already gone into Turn 4 run-off and tried to change the balance of the car on pitlane, revisited the same run-off after locking up and then stalling. He drove slowly back to the pits.

Josef Newgarden had a four-wheel drift into the wall that necessitated repairs, while teammate McLaughlin had another moment at Turn 3, but not before Alex Palou delivered top time, a 61.6790sec on his 23^rd lap.

With under three minutes to go, Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet’s Rinus VeeKay went third fastest, 0.1724sec off the top, with six-time champion Scott Dixon moving into fourth, and his Ganassi teammate Marcus Armstrong less than one-tenth behind. Then Dixon went fastest at 61.6145sec, a mere 0.0645 faster than Palou, with Herta managing to split them on his final flyer.

Pagenaud jumped into the top five in the closing couple of minutes too, so that the top five were covered by less than a tenth of a second.

VeeKay’s time was good enough to retain sixth as fastest Chevrolet driver, with Malukas separating him from Will Power, defending IndyCar Series champion in eighth.

Armstrong was far and away the best rookie, finishing his first official session in ninth, 0.33sec behind teammate and compatriot Dixon, but just ahead of another compatriot, McLaughlin.

Pato O’Ward nipped teammate Rosenqvist by 0.09sec, the latter surviving an alarming fishtail moment into Turn 1, while their new teammate Alexander Rossi ended the session in 21^st.

Canapino ended his first ever open-wheel session an impressive 19^th, albeit having been the sole driver to run a set of soft, green sidewalled Firestones. Juncos Hollinger teammate Callum Ilott was 12^th.

Second practice begins at 10.00am local (Eastern) time.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	29	1'01.6145		105.170
2	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	25	1'01.6475	0.0330	105.114
3	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	25	1'01.6790	0.0645	105.060
4	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	26	1'01.6851	0.0706	105.050
5	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	28	1'01.6963	0.0818	105.031
6	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	25	1'01.8514	0.2369	104.767
7	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	24	1'01.8613	0.2468	104.750
8	Will Power	Team Penske	27	1'01.8915	0.2770	104.699
9	Marcus Armstrong	Chip Ganassi Racing	35	1'01.9444	0.3299	104.610
10	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	26	1'01.9882	0.3737	104.536
11	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	23	1'02.0177	0.4032	104.486
12	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	25	1'02.0360	0.4215	104.455
13	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	29	1'02.0733	0.4588	104.393
14	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	30	1'02.1064	0.4919	104.337
15	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	26	1'02.1094	0.4949	104.332
16	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	26	1'02.2507	0.6362	104.095
17	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	26	1'02.3236	0.7091	103.973
18	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	25	1'02.3290	0.7145	103.964
19	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger Racing	34	1'02.3629	0.7484	103.908
20	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	29	1'02.4032	0.7887	103.841
21	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	22	1'02.4616	0.8471	103.744
22	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	17	1'02.5150	0.9005	103.655
23	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	29	1'02.5480	0.9335	103.600
24	Ray Robb	Dale Coyne Racing	37	1'02.8157	1.2012	103.159
25	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	13	1'03.0412	1.4267	102.790
26	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	18	1'03.1389	1.5244	102.631
27	Benjamin Pedersen	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	26	1'03.5134	1.8989	102.026
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