The NTT IndyCar Series held the first official session of the weekend on Friday afternoon, with all 27 drivers getting 75 minutes to come to grips with Laguna Seca’s new track surface.
Much less time was actually available, however, as red flags disrupted nearly the entirety of the second half of the session.
Despite the short amount of time available, Colton Herta was able to set the fastest time of the afternoon in his special throwback livery that is reminiscent of his father’s race-winning livery from 25 years ago.
Herta lapped the track in 1:07.5382, which is significantly faster than cars were able to lap around the old surface last year.
Two Arrow McLaren drivers Pato O’Ward and Alexander Rossi set the second and third fastest times, with each only less than a tenth slower than the top time.
Most of the fastest laps on the timesheet were set on the softer red tire, but there was very little green flag time in the latter part of the session, which is when most drivers planned to test out the quicker rubber.
The first driver to have trouble was Romain Grosjean, who binned his Andretti Autosport Honda into the protective tire barriers 30 minutes into the day.
He thoroughly destroyed the back end of his car, and the safety crew had to crane the damaged entry back to the paddock.
That incident set off a chain of problems, with the faster track biting hard when a driver made just the smallest mistake.
Scott McLaughlin ran off into the gravel in Turn 2 shortly after the session was restarted, and Canapino did the same during the next attempt to get cars on track.
Will Power also slid through the gravel and nearly took off his rear wing, in yet another incident as time wound down.
There was yet another red flag in the middle of the session for Juri Vips, who had engine trouble on the uphill portion of the course.
Nearly 30 minutes of track time was lost to the red flags, and many drivers never had a chance properly try out the red tires before they had to head back to their haulers.
The most laps set by a single driver was 33 by Pato O’Ward, but many set considerably fewer than that while they were waiting for the track to be available.
A second practice session takes place Saturday morning, when the drivers will turn as many laps as they can to properly get their cars set up for the important qualifying session later in the day.
