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Motorsport
Motorsport
Sport
David Malsher-Lopez

Kirkwood ends final test session on top, Ericsson tops Day 2

Kirkwood lapped the 17-turn 3.076-mile course in 1min38.8279sec, an average speed of 111.721mph, but it fell 0.4sec short of Ericsson’s benchmark for Ganassi from this morning’s session. The series sophomore, who is about to embark on his first season with Andretti Autosport-Honda, might have improved still further, had he not suffered a brake fire after a mild off-course excursion.

That caused one of five red flags, with both Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske-Chevrolet falling off the asphalt, along with Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren-Chevrolet and Christian Lundgaard of Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda.

A mere 0.0125sec behind Kirkwood was the impressive Callum Ilott, whose Juncos Hollinger Racing team has impressed in its first test since expanding to two cars. Ilott’s rookie teammate Agustin Canapino ended the fourth session in 20th, 0.85sec adrift of his teammate, but ahead of two RLL cars, both Ed Carpenter Racing cars and both AJ Foyt Racing cars.

Marcus Armstrong was top rookie, edging his Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda teammate Alex Palou by 0.03sec, as he prepares to tackle the road and street courses in the #11 entry.

Two-time and defending champion Will Power moved up to fifth, 0.1062sec off the ultimate, and a mere four hundredths ahead of his old teammate Simon Pagenaud of Meyer Shank Racing-Honda.

Yesterday’s pacesetter Colton Herta was seventh for Andretti, just ahead of Newgarden who was eighth fastest despite his incident.

Scott Dixon turned the most laps (35) on his way to ninth, ahead of the swiftest of the Arrow McLaren SP-Chevys, driven by Alexander Rossi.

Despite Thermal Club’s combo of North and South tracks lap being longer than all but one of the courses on the IndyCar schedules, the 27 cars present were covered by just 1.5sec.

P

Name

FTime

Diff

FL

Laps

FSpeed

Engine

Team

1

Kyle Kirkwood

1:38.8279

1:38.8279

8

10

111.721

Honda

Andretti Autosport

2

Callum Ilott

1:38.8404

0.0125

10

23

111.707

Chevy

Juncos Hollinger Racing

3

Marcus Armstrong

1:38.8409

0.0130

17

24

111.707

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

4

Alex Palou

1:38.8718

0.0439

15

31

111.672

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

5

Will Power

1:38.9341

0.1062

18

23

111.602

Chevy

Team Penske

6

Simon Pagenaud

1:38.9769

0.1490

9

22

111.553

Honda

Meyer Shank Racing

7

Colton Herta

1:39.1047

0.2768

11

16

111.409

Honda

Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian

8

Josef Newgarden

1:39.1739

0.3460

11

19

111.332

Chevy

Team Penske

9

Scott Dixon

1:39.2377

0.4098

32

35

111.260

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

10

Alexander Rossi

1:39.2500

0.4221

19

19

111.246

Chevy

Arrow McLaren

11

Christian Lundgaard

1:39.2842

0.4563

7

28

111.208

Honda

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

12

Marcus Ericsson

1:39.3425

0.5146

8

28

111.143

Honda

Chip Ganassi Racing

13

Romain Grosjean

1:39.3547

0.5268

15

34

111.129

Honda

Andretti Autosport

14

David Malukas

1:39.3668

0.5389

24

33

111.116

Honda

Dale Coyne Racing with HMD

15

Helio Castroneves

1:39.4114

0.5835

15

31

111.066

Honda

Meyer Shank Racing

16

Scott McLaughlin

1:39.4290

0.6011

11

33

111.046

Chevy

Team Penske

17

Pato O'Ward

1:39.4310

0.6031

2

26

111.044

Chevy

Arrow McLaren

18

Devlin DeFrancesco

1:39.6640

0.8361

7

27

110.784

Honda

Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport

19

Felix Rosenqvist

1:39.6821

0.8542

3

20

110.764

Chevy

Arrow McLaren

20

Agustin Canapino

1:39.7039

0.8760

12

25

110.740

Chevy

Juncos Holling Racing

21

Graham Rahal

1:39.7432

0.9153

18

25

110.696

Honda

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

22

Jack Harvey

1:39.8567

1.0288

7

25

110.570

Honda

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

23

Sting Ray Robb

1:39.8983

1.0704

16

27

110.524

Honda

Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR

24

Rinus VeeKay

1:40.0806

1.2527

12

28

110.323

Chevy

Ed Carpenter Racing

25

Benjamin Pedersen

1:40.1297

1.3018

19

27

110.269

Chevy

AJ Foyt Enterprises

26

Conor Daly

1:40.2270

1.3991

15

27

110.162

Chevy

Ed Carpenter Racing

27

Santino Ferrucci

1:40.2833

1.4554

13

26

110.100

Chevy

AJ Foyt Enterprises

 

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