IndyCar took to the Nashville Superspeedway oval on Saturday afternoon, with a single practice session serving as the only preparation for qualifying later in the day.
The 60-minute session was busy, with over 1100 laps turned on the 1.33-mile oval by the 27 drivers.
Pato O’Ward was quickest overall, as he completed a lap in 23.6612 seconds and averaging 202.357 MPH.
O’Ward set his lap near the end of the session after rubber had built into the concrete banking, but his lap was unique in that it was set on the harder compound tire.
Most drivers chose to run the soft tire to better simulate qualifying, but O’Ward only put the harder tire to the test and he will have some unknowns going into qualifying.
Kyle Kirkwood was second quick, and was only 0.4 MPH off the pace in his Andretti Global Honda.
Christian Lundgaard was third quick, nearly matching his team-mate’s time at the top of the charts.
Rounding out the top five were Colton Herta and Scott Dixon, who set nearly identical times on their runs.
Near the bottom of the order, Jacob Abel and Rinus VeeKay could not find the pace during the opening session. The Dale Coyne Racing duo were 25th and 26th quick, with only Graham Rahal further down the charts.
Small trouble on the high banks
Two bumps between Turns 3 and 4 caused a bit of trouble for drivers as their cars were upset while cruising at speed.
The 14 degree banking provides high g-forces while drivers cruise at 200 MPH, and the bumps affected the cars considerably as they flew past.
Devlin DeFrancesco had the most trouble with the bumps, and he very nearly had a devastating crash while completing a qualifying simulation.
DeFrancesco was able to gather up his car after it nearly broke loose, but the #30 still lightly bounced off the wall coming onto the main straight.
The RLL crew took the car back to the garage to fix a broken toe link, but overall there appeared to be no other damage.
Alex Palou spun while exiting the pit lane near the end of the session, but was able to keep his car off the banking.
If he had gotten up onto the racing line it could have spelled trouble for the new four-time champion. As it was, he completed the 16th fastest lap of the day.
Only a small break awaits drivers, as qualifying is set to begin just over two hours after practice at 1:00 PM.
Discussion about this post