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David Malsher-Lopez

Barber IndyCar: Herta leads first practice, Ilott stars

Herta lapped the 2.366-mile 17-turn course in Birmingham, AL, in 66.5149sec, an average speed of 124.483mph to shade Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda’s defending race-winner here, by a mere 0.05sec.

Alexander Rossi was precisely 0.1sec behind Andretti Autosport teammate Herta but a hair faster than another teammate, Romain Grosjean, who is returning to the site of his first ever IndyCar race last year.

In a session that suggested Honda have retained somewhat of an advantage over Chevrolet on sinewy road courses, St. Petersburg winner, Team Penske-Chevy’s Scott McLaughlin, made a late improvement to bound into fifth place ahead of New Zealand compatriot Scott Dixon in the second quickest Ganassi.

Last year’s pole-winner, Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward, was the second fastest of the Chevys with a 66.9838sec, some 0.47sec off the ultimate pace.

Behind him was one of the stars of the session, Callum Ilott in the sole Juncos Hollinger Racing-Chevy entry. He lapped the 2.366-mile course a tenth off O’Ward, but eighth overall after running 20 laps in the car bearing the Racing for Children’s Presented by Medical Properties Trust livery. He was fastest rookie.

Marcus Ericsson surived a hair-raising venture into the grass at Turn 13 to go ninth quickest ahead of Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet.

Jack Harvey was the quickest of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Hondas in 11th.

Will Power and Josef Newgarden, who have five Barber wins between them, were only 16th and 18th but Newgarden’s efforts were stymied by a technical issue which ended his session 10mins early. This weekend, the two-time champion could earn $500,000 bonus from PeopleReady, as he attempts to become the first driver this year to clinch victory on an oval, a street course and a road course.

Power and McLaughlin meanwhile turned 22 laps each as Penske attempts to make up for the fact that it did no ‘natural’ roadcourse testing in the offseason, and there is a new Firestone tire to learn for this weekend.

P

Name

FTime

Diff

FL

Laps

LapTime

Engine

Team

1

Colton Herta

1:06.5149

 

5

15

1:07.2187

Honda

Andretti Autosport

2

Alex Palou

1:06.5657

0.0508

8

17

1:07.5571

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

3

Alexander Rossi

1:06.6657

0.1508

6

14

1:08.5594

Honda

Andretti Autosport

4

Romain Grosjean

1:06.7046

0.1897

5

16

1:06.8716

Honda

Andretti Autosport

5

Scott McLaughlin

1:06.8705

0.3556

22

22

1:06.8705

Chevy

Team Penske

6

Scott Dixon

1:06.9251

0.4102

10

16

1:07.4282

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

7

Pato O'Ward

1:06.9838

0.4689

4

16

1:08.2196

Chevy

Arrow McLaren SP

8

Callum Ilott

1:07.0861

0.5712

10

20

1:09.0582

Chevy

Juncos Hollinger Racing

9

Marcus Ericsson

1:07.1012

0.5863

6

17

1:07.7934

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

10

Rinus VeeKay

1:07.1155

0.6006

18

18

1:07.1155

Chevy

Ed Carpenter Racing

11

Jack Harvey

1:07.1841

0.6692

7

17

1:08.5340

Honda

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

12

Helio Castroneves

1:07.2293

0.7144

6

14

1:07.8985

Honda

Meyer Shank Racing

13

Felix Rosenqvist

1:07.3416

0.8267

10

17

1:07.6990

Chevy

Arrow McLaren SP

14

Devlin DeFrancesco

1:07.3817

0.8668

20

20

1:07.3817

Honda

Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport

15

Christian Lundgaard

1:07.4004

0.8855

11

21

1:07.8519

Honda

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

16

Will Power

1:07.4132

0.8983

9

22

1:07.4304

Chevy

Team Penske

17

Graham Rahal

1:07.4457

0.9308

7

17

1:07.6495

Honda

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

18

Josef Newgarden

1:07.5505

1.0356

14

15

3:54.5483

Chevy

Team Penske

19

Conor Daly

1:07.5747

1.0598

9

17

1:07.7626

Chevy

Ed Carpenter Racing

20

Kyle Kirkwood

1:07.6110

1.0961

17

17

1:07.6110

Chevy

AJ Foyt Enterprises

21

Simon Pagenaud

1:07.6916

1.1767

7

17

1:07.8039

Honda

Meyer Shank Racing

22

Takuma Sato

1:07.7473

1.2324

6

17

1:08.0535

Honda

Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR

23

David Malukas

1:07.9687

1.4538

4

16

1:08.0378

Honda

Dale Coyne Racing with HMD

24

Dalton Kellett

1:08.4288

1.9139

7

19

1:08.4495

Chevy

AJ Foyt Enterprises

25

Jimmie Johnson

1:08.4633

1.9484

11

21

1:09.3542

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

26

Tatiana Calderon

1:09.2677

2.7528

18

21

1:10.2406

Chevy

AJ Foyt Enterprises

 

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