The Olympic break lasted less than two weeks for the NTT IndyCar Series field, as half of the 10 full-time teams are spending the day at World Wide Technology Raceway and a sixth team, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, is running on the IMS road course with Formula 2 driver Zane Maloney.
The WWTR outing is a blend of rookie test days with Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegal, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Linus Lundqvist and Kyffin Simpson and Ed Carpenter Racing’s Christian Rasmussen, and team days for Andretti Global with Colton Herta, Kyle Kirkwood and Marcus Ericsson, and Juncos Hollinger Racing with Romain Grosjean and Conor Daly.
Although JHR’s Agustin Canapino is shown on the timing and scoring screen, multiple sources at the WWTR test have told RACER that Daly is in the No. 78 Chevy for the day. An outreach to JHR to inquire about the testing change was made, but the team had not responded at time of publication.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1408]
For ECR, the rookie day presents a chance to give Rasmussen, whose primary campaign has been on road and street courses, more oval miles in an IndyCar after doing the Indianapolis 500 in May. Although the reigning Indy NXT champion is not scheduled to race at any of the remaining ovals on the schedule, team president Tim Broyles said the Dane can help get teammates Ed Carpenter and Rinus VeeKay in a better state of tune when they come back to WWTR to race in a few weeks.
“We think a lot of Christian,” Broyles told RACER. “He’s done a good job, and obviously maturing a lot and we’re seeing a lot of good things. And want to continue to evaluate him for the future. We believe in his feedback.
“His debriefs from Indy, or even road course weekends, has given really good feedback. It’s feedback that we can utilize. He had good results on ovals in the past in other series, so we have a lot of faith in the job that he can do.”
Testing during the break continues on August 7 at Nashville Speedway, which a focus on tires. The last test at the new venue for IndyCar’s season finale did not go well in that regard, as multiple tire failures were experienced on the 1.33-mile oval.
With new tire options to try and finalize ahead of the September 15 race, Andretti Global with Colton Herta, Arrow McLaren with Pato O’Ward, Chip Ganassi Racing with Scott Dixon or Alex Palou, and Team Penske’s Will Power are expected to handle testing duties for Firestone and IndyCar.