Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet was the first driver to lap the 0.894-mile course in more than 170mph, but it was his teammate Daly who zoomed to the top of the start with his fourth lap. Daly, who took a pole for the Carlin team here back in 2020, lapped in 18.5778sec which is an average of 173.239mph. Even Josef Newgarden, who has led more than 1100 laps at this track, fell more than 1.6mph short despite moving into second.
Graham Rahal, who has always been strong at Iowa, was third fastest at the halfway point of the 90-minute session but with 40mins to go he was usurped by Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet’s Pato O’Ward on his 46th lap having switched to a new set of Firestones. Then Alex Palou, defending champion in his newly Ridgeline-colored #10 Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda, slotted into second, within 1.5mph of Daly’s benchmark. However, on his 53rd lap, O’Ward grabbed second, with a 172.687mph
