Colton Herta topped the times during the IndyCar ‘Spring Training’ afternoon test session. The Harding Steinbrenner driver ran a 1:46:63 at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, and also set the fastest morning session time of 1:48:74.
Will Power and Helio Castroneves both improved late on to finish second and third on the timesheets, but with a total of eight sets of Firestone tyres, and still a full day of testing to run tomorrow, many teams were not looking for outright pace.
Indeed, there was speculation that Herta’s time, almost half a second clear of the Penske pairing, was likely a fresh-tyre, low-fuel run, perhaps with the aim of generating some positive news for a team making no official comment about their recent split with Indy Lights champion Patricio O’Ward.
The COTA track warmed up throughout the day, with a green surface rubbering in and the fastest times being set in the afternoon session. Teams and drivers mostly focused on set-up work, having had limited previous experience of the facility. This led to some interesting car behaviour through the day, with the likes of Helio Castroneves battling massive oversteer during the morning as Penske ran through different set-up combinations.
The technical nature of the circuit was a challenge for the drivers, with Zach Veach commenting that: “All the corners tie into each other, so from turn three all the way to turn nine, if you get one thing wrong it throws the entire lap away.”
Both Veach and Will Power said the Firestone rubber was going off after only a couple of laps, the long radius corners causing a lot of wear and indicating tyre management may play a key role in the race in late March. There were many front tyre lock ups at the end of the long back straight into turn 12, compounding the tyre wear problems still further.
An hour into the second session, Marco Andretti ran wide after going deep into that same corner and launched his US Concrete sponsored car over the sausage curb. With all four wheels off the ground, there was a no-doubt painful landing which saw his car checked out before returning to the action later in the day.
The teams will reconvene at COTA tomorrow for the second and last test session before the season opener in St. Petersburg, Florida, next month.
