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 |