Will Power was a quarter-second faster than his nearest opposition in first practice for the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix on the streets of Nashville, although he ended the session with a thump on the Turn 1 wall.
Christian Lundgaard set the early benchmark of 1m18.0009s for Rahal Letterman Lanigan, but with 45 minutes remaining, out came the Arrow McLarens. Pato O’Ward, who had run on at Turn 9 on an early lap, got down to a 1m17.4437s on his fourth lap, an average of 97.619mph around the 2.1-mile course. He was soon backed up by teammate Alexander Rossi, 0.3662s behind.
Dominant points leader Alex Palou then produced a 1m17.4116s to edge O’Ward before ducking into the 1m16s. That allowed him to remain ahead of 2021 Nashville pole winner Colton Herta of Andretti Autosport and 2022 Nashville pole winner Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske.
Defending race winner Scott Dixon got into fourth ahead of O’Ward and Power, with hometown hero Josef Newgarden moving into the top six too.
With 18 minutes to go, Power improved to third ahead of teammate McLaughlin, and when the drivers strapped on the Firestone alternates, Power moved to the top with a 1m16.4042s.
Palou’s initial response was a quarter-second off, while O’Ward jumped to third and Lundgaard to fourth. Hugely impressively, series debutant Linus Lundqvist, the Indy NXT champion subbing for Simon Pagenaud in the Meyer Shank Racing Honda, was in the top 10 at this stage, within a second of Power.
With five minutes to go, out came the red flag for a spin and stall for Callum Ilott in Turn 11 after a bump threw him out of line in the braking zone.
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The session had just restarted with 3m30s to go when Power caught the wall on the outside of Turn 1 with his right front. After a little shuffling around, he got going again but then the second red flew for Benjamin Pedersen sliding into the Turn 11 runoff.
Behind Palou, Rossi was fastest of the Arrow McLaren drivers, a few hundredths ahead of teammate O’Ward, while Lundgaard retained fifth to eclipse all Andretti cars.
David Malukas put the Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Honda into seventh, but arguably star of the show was Lundqvist’s whose best effort kept him 11th fastest.
UP NEXT: Practice 2 is Saturday morning at 11:40am ET