After finishing the season’s first short oval under the lights on Sunday night, the IndyCar paddock reconvened at one of America’s best road courses.
The speeds around Road America were a bit slower than last year, with speeds on the 4.01-mile circuit barely topping a 137 MPH average.
The fastest driver of all was Kyle Kirkwood, who continued his momentum from last week’s win to top the timesheets on Friday afternoon.
Kirkwood’s fastest lap was completed in 1:44.9881, which he set in the final minutes on a fresh set of soft tires.
Devlin DeFrancesco was second fastest, surprising fans by placing his #30 RLL Honda high up on the timing screens.
His place in Friday’s standings were partially on account of a couple late stoppages on the course, which interrupted some driver’s attempts on their own soft tires.
Felix Rosenqvist was one of a few drivers that didn’t get a chance to try out the softer tires at all, and will go into Saturday’s qualifying without having sampled the red-walled Firestones.
Team Penske had a good showing, by placing their three drivers third, fourth, and sixth in the early standings. Will Power was the fastest of the three, but all were very close on pace.
Christian Lundgaard was also in the mix, placing his Arrow McLaren Chevy fifth on the time sheets.
Alex Palou was on top for much of the session, but a late fast lap by others on soft tires pushed him down to ninth in the standings.
Pushing hard
There were two short red flags, the first of which was brought out when Santino Ferrucci lost control and slid into the grass.
It initially looked like he would not be able to get going on his own, which was the reason for the red flag.
But he eventually was able to restart his AJ Foyt Racing car with the hybrid system and drove himself back to the pits. He was given a practice time penalty for disrupting the session.
Then late in the session Alexander Rossi suffered a strange spin that put him in the gravel on the outside of Turn 1.
He was not able to drive out of the rocks, and needed assistance from the AMR safety crew to get going again.
Multiple other drivers pushed a bit over the limit, but were able to continue on their way.
DeFrancesco even found the gravel, but was able to keep the momentum going and continued through to the grass then back to the track.
Drivers will be back on track tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM central time, when heat and wind are set to give drivers a heap of trouble.
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