Marcus Armstrong led the final practice session before this afternoon’s Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course. Chip Ganassi Racing’s younger New Zealander used a set of the softer alternate compound Firestones to lap the 14-turn 2.439-mile course in 1m09.8485s, shading nearest pursuer, Colton Herta, by a sold 0.3829s.
Initially, the majority of teams focused on warming up their crews by doing practice pit stops.
In the opening 10 minutes, on the primaries, Romain Grosjean of Juncos Hollinger Racing and the Team Penske cars of Will Power and Scott McLaughlin looked particularly strong, although in overall lap times they were behind Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing, Kyle Kirkwood’s Andretti Global entry and the third Penske car of Josef Newgarden.
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Late in the session, Armstrong jumped to the top with a 1m09.9331s effort and then trimmed a further tenth from that to set the final benchmark ahead of championship leader Herta, who will roll off 24th this afternoon after running out of fuel during qualifying.
VeeKay was third fastest, ahead of yesterday’s pole winner, two-time champion Alex Palou, with Graham Rahal fifth.
The session was brought to a slightly premature halt by Pato O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren blowing up its Chevrolet and causing a red flag.