COTA IndyCar: Rossi leads FP3 as Ericsson crashes

Rossi was the only driver to dip under the 1min47sec barrier, nailing a 1min46.915sec that is the fastest lap of the weekend. The ambient temperature of 69degF allowed the harder primary black tires to send Rossi’s car some half a second quicker than Will Power’s benchmark time on ‘reds’ in FP2 yesterday.

Rookie Felix Rosenqvist in the Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda impressed again with second fastest, just 0.1388 slower than Rossi and more than 0.38sec clear of Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda) and Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti).

Josef Newgarden, Will Power and Simon Pagenaud were fifth, seventh and ninth respectively for Team Penske-Chevrolet, while reigning champion Scott Dixon was half a second off teammate Rosenqvist.

With his final flyer of the session, Spencer Pigot grabbed eighth for Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet, while the two men who fought for the 2018 Indy Lights championship, Colton Herta (Harding Steinbrenner Racing-Honda) and Patricio O’Ward (Carlin Racing-Chevrolet) were 12^th and 14^th.

Ericsson’s shunt in the Arrow SPM-Honda came as he took the wide line exiting Turn 19, utilizing the paved run-off, as permitted by IndyCar. The gold-and-black car snaked viciously on the dust and sent him into the tire barrier, apparently without hurt to the driver, although the nose section will need replacing and the front suspension checked over.

Qualifying begins at 2.00pm local (Central) time.

Practice times:

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1'46.9148
2	10	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'47.0536	0.1388
3	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'47.4397	0.5249
4	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1'47.5363	0.6215
5	2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'47.5372	0.6224
6	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'47.6218	0.7070
7	12	Will Power	Team Penske	1'47.6660	0.7512
8	21	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'47.6855	0.7707
9	22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	1'47.7387	0.8239
10	18	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	1'47.7700	0.8552
11	26	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	1'47.8036	0.8888
12	88	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	1'47.8097	0.8949
13	30	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'47.9333	1.0185
14	31	Patricio O'Ward	Carlin	1'47.9816	1.0668
15	20	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'48.1228	1.2080
16	5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'48.1706	1.2558
17	7	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'48.2911	1.3763
18	60	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	1'48.4150	1.5002
19	98	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	1'48.5342	1.6194
20	19	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	1'48.5392	1.6244
21	4	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'48.5783	1.6635
22	59	Max Chilton	Carlin	1'48.9655	2.0507
23	14	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'49.1023	2.1875
24	32	Kyle Kaiser	Juncos Racing	1'50.0297	3.1149