Sato, who led practice on Day 1 (Day 2 was rained out), put the Dale Coyne Racing with RWR-Honda on top of the speed charts with a lap of 227.519mph, just 39.5572sec around the iconic 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Endorsing the promise shown by the Coyne cars in traffic was his rookie teammate David Malukas in the Coyne with HMD car, who was third fastest on a 226.869mph lap. The pair were split by Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda’s Scott Dixon on 227.335mph.
But much of the talk afterward was of the number of near-misses that Andretti Autosport-Honda’s Romain Grosjean had with the SAFER barrier. He had four lurid slides toward the wall at Turn 2 and one at Turn 4, every time while closely following four or more cars, and every time without intimidating himself – but causing his team to call him in. He ended the day 23rd fastest.
