On Saturday morning, drivers of the NTT IndyCar Series headed out on the brand new street course around the nation’s capital in Washington, D.C.
Early morning rains meant that the first time drivers saw the new track was on the grooved version of Firestone’s race tires.
A dry line appeared quickly, however, and slicks were soon fitted to all cars for the second half of the session.
Christian Lundgaard was the first driver to complete a full lap of the 1.7-mile course, but it was Rinus VeeKay that first dipped below the one-minute barrier on slick tires.
When the 90-minute session was done, Kyle Kirkwood was the fastest driver of all with a lap of 57.3744 seconds at an average speed of 106.668 MPH.
Not surprisingly, Alex Palou was near the top of the timesheets and completed the second fastest lap of the session.
Rookie Dennis Hauger continued his good form and was third quick, followed by David Malukas and last week’s winner Marcus Ericsson rounding out the top five.
Hauger turned the most laps of all drivers, completing 37 circuits of the new course before time expired.
There was a mix of hard and soft compound tires used during the opening practice, as different teams had different ideas about which early information was needed most to complete setup changes for the rest of the weekend.
Solid build
The track itself appears to have been built to a high level, with no concerns related to the construction despite it taking place in a heavily regulated location.
IndyCar’s own promotion team, headed up by Penske Corporation president Bud Denker, employed the same team that organizes the Detroit Grand Prix each June.
Multiple bumps on the streets themselves caused some issues for drivers, however, leading to lock-ups and hard hits to the underside of the chassis.
The largest hit occurs just before the braking zone leading into turn 2, which is the fastest part of the circuit.
A crosswalk presents a slightly raised section that was causing every car to bottom out once or twice as they sped over the bump.
A similar bump heading into Turn 6 also gave drivers some trouble as they searched for the best path to run at speed.
Christian Lundgaard got a little squirrely while navigating that second bump and glanced sideways off the concrete barriers, damaging his toe link in the process.
Will Power also glanced off the wall, forcing an early end to his session while his Andretti crew began working on suspension repairs.
A second practice is scheduled for just past 1:00 PM eastern time, followed by qualifying at 5:00 PM. A slight chance of more rain remains throughout the day, which would create plenty of drama if it were to come.
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