The new fast, tight and bumpy course on downtown Detroit streets caused plenty of red flags but by the end of the session Pato O’Ward was in the lead for Arrow McLaren ahead of Ganassi legend Scott Dixon.
AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet’s Benjamin Pedersen became the first driver to complete full laps and complete the additional primaries that all IndyCar rookies receive for street and city courses. But it was the Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda rookie in the No. 11 car who ducked under the 70 mark first and averaged 89.929 mph to 1:09.9 seconds followed by 1:08.1 minutes, then 1:06.5 seconds and finally 1:05.8520 seconds all around the 1.645 mile course. Eventually, Armstrong shortened that time to 1:05.2832 minutes, 90.712 miles per hour.
Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Agustin Canapino provided the first red flag of the session. He was 1.1s off Armstrong’s early benchmark when the #78 went too far at Turn 1 and needed a restart. After 14 of the 19 Indy NXT cars ended up in the runoff at Turn 1 in the first session of this series, it came as no surprise that there was an incident among the 27 participating IndyCars.
Andretti Autosport-Honda’s Kyle Kirkwood beat Armstrong on his fifth lap with a time of 1’05.1620s and then went under the 65 mark with 1’04.9870s, a touch faster than Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist- Chevy.
2021 champion Alex Palou briefly made it to the top, but his best performance was matched by Colton Herta (Andretti), who sped around the lap in 1m04.3840s – 91.979mph – and then moved up Scott Dixon advanced to second place, 0.13 seconds behind Herta and 0.1 seconds ahead of Palou.
With 50 minutes left of the 90-minute session, Canapino hit the wall with both sides of the car at Turn 7, disqualifying him from further participation in the session. Then Graham Rahal caused the second red flag when he continued straight at Turn 3 and stalled trying to re-enter.
On his 21st lap, Helio Castroneves’ Honda engine stalled due to an electronics problem, while Marcus Ericssson caused a red flag with half an hour to go after running too long and stalling at Turn 1 and spinning not long after also found Scott McLaughlin and needed a reboot.
With 17 minutes to go, Devlin De Francesco and Palou found themselves in the Turn 3 runoff and had to be rescued.
Several riders on alternative tires appeared on the wave of the green and Pato O’Ward jumped to the lead with a time of 1:03.5436s averaging 93.196mph with a time of 1:03.0773 Minutes a second ahead of new P2 driver McLaughlin and Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Christian Lundgaard.
Times continued to drop behind O’Ward, with Herta finishing second – albeit 0.6767s behind his former Indy Lights teammate – while Will Power secured third place, just hundredths ahead of McLaughlin.
Kirkwood took O’Ward’s lead to less than half a second and then Rossi came within 0.3s of his team-mate while Palou and Dixon finished in the top six before the latter with a lap to within 0.0986s to Palou.
A late improvement by Felix Rosenqvist ensured all three McLarens were inside the top six, while Callum Ilott’s last flyer put him in ninth place ahead of McLaughlin, Ericsson and Lundgaard.
Newly crowned Indy 500 champion Josef Newgarden was 15th while Romain Grosjean should have been stronger but his hottest lap was hampered by Pedersen in a terrible session for the Foyt cars.
The second practice session for the Chevrolet Detroit GP begins on Saturday at 9:00 am local time (Eastern Time).
RESULTS
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