As per the most recent races on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course, Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Honda-powered cars and Arrow McLaren’s Chevrolets were the pacesetters in terms of one-lap speed during opening practice for tomorrow’s Gallagher Grand Prix. The session ended with Graham Rahal and Christian Lundgaard in first and third for RLL and Felix Rosenqvist and Alexander Rossi in second and fourth for McLaren.
Inevitably, the 90-minute session began with rookies on track, using their extra set of tires, and it was Marcus Armstrong who was first under the 71s barrier, turning a 1m10.7238s in the No. 11 for Chip Ganassi Racing. As the veterans started to turn fast laps, Lundgaard — defending polesitter here from the GMR Grand Prix in May — moved to the top with a 1m10.4945s, an average of 124.554mph around the 14-turn, 2.439-mile track.
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The man who won last year’s Gallagher GP for Andretti Autosport and took a podium for Arrow McLaren Chevrolet in May then hit the top spot, a tenth quicker than Lundgaard, while Kyle Kirkwood and Colton Herta thrust their Andretti Autosport Hondas into the top five. But with 50 minutes left, last May’s race winner and runaway championship points leader Alex Palou then went top by one tenth of a second with a 1m10.3003s.
A red flag just past the halfway mark was caused by Pato O’Ward sliding off at Turn 12 and stalling, but the McLaren ace didn’t make impact with anything solid and was restarted by the AMR Safety Team. He did have to sit out the next five minutes of the session having caused a stoppage, however.
Linus Lundqvist — in his second event for Meyer Shank Racing as sub for the still recovering Simon Pagenaud — boosted himself up the field with 25 minutes to go, briefly clocking sixth fastest, but was immediately bumped down to seventh by the improving Graham Rahal, a former podium finisher on this track.
The first driver to strap on alternates — Firestone reverting to the slightly harder compound it used here in 2021 — was two-time Indy road course pole winner Rosenqvist. His Arrow McLaren set the first 125mph lap of the session, his second flyer on the softer rubber cracking the 70sec mark with a 1m09.9267s.
David Malukas also used the reds to jump up the order to fourth, until Marcuses Ericsson and Armstrong of Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda clocked third and fourth, the latter impressively still on primaries. NBC Sports reported that Ericsson was suffering a clutch issue, retarding his departure from the pit box.
Lundgaard and Harvey went second and fifth for RLL on the alternates, but it was their teammate Rahal who went to the top with 1m09.8421s with nine minutes remaining.
Scott McLaughlin was the first of the three Team Penske drivers to lay down a representative time, going fifth fastest, until Rossi clocked fourth. In fact, he was the only Penske driver to look fast, with regular Indy road course polesitter Will Power finishing the session in 20th — yet a quarter-second and four spots ahead of Josef Newgarden, who needs to close an 84-point deficit to championship leader Palou in the space of four races.
UP NEXT: Qualifying begins at 12.30pm ET. However, early engine-change penalties will be imposed on three Honda drivers, with Helio Castroneves of Meyer Shank Racing, David Malukas of Dale Coyne Racing with HMD and Jack Harvey of Rahal Letterman Lanigan all dropping six places on the grid.