Practice report

Detroit IndyCar: Rossi leads race day warm-up session

Alexander Rossi demonstrated his and the #27 Andretti Autosport-Honda’s latent promise that was masked by a red flag in qualifying, by topping this morning’s half-hour warm-up.

Jimmie Johnson had just set his fastest lap on his eighth lap when he had a spin and stall exiting Turn 12, nudging the wall with his nosecone but otherwise without causing damage.

That was the session’s only red flag, just after Johnson’s teammate Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda teammate Alex Palou had gone fastest.

Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist of Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet were second and third fastest up until the closing six minutes. At that point Simon Pagenaud, who will start third this afternoon, moved his Meyer Shank Racing-Honda up to second fastest with Colton Herta and Scott Dixon popping into the top five.

However, Alexander Rossi then ducked down to 1min15.5816sec on primary Firestones, while Marcus Ericsson delivered a 15.9213 on the softer alternate compound, and Christian Lundgaard went third fastest on primaries.

Then On his final lap Scott Dixon bounced his Ganassi car up into third on primary tires, ahead of Lundgarrd, Palou and Pagenaud.

Meanwhile, James Hinchcliffe, commentating on Peacock live streaming, pointed out that polesitter Josef Newgarden was pounding around on reds to gauge the dropoff in grip of the reds, and was lapping in 1min20sec.

Rinus VeeKay was busiest driver, turning 20 laps.

Romain Grosjean, who shunted heavily during qualifying, was able to finish 12^th in his rebuilt car, while Dalton Kellett was also able to rejoin his peers after his crash in second practice prevented him from taking part in qualifying.

The race will begin at 3.40pm local (Eastern) time.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	17	1'15.581		111.932
2	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	16	1'15.921	0.339	111.431
3	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	18	1'15.975	0.393	111.352
4	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	18	1'16.111	0.530	111.153
5	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	16	1'16.174	0.593	111.060
6	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	17	1'16.183	0.602	111.047
7	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	17	1'16.303	0.721	110.873
8	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	19	1'16.404	0.823	110.726
9	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	19	1'16.759	1.177	110.214
10	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	19	1'16.770	1.188	110.199
11	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	20	1'16.846	1.264	110.090
12	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	15	1'16.862	1.281	110.066
13	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing	18	1'17.242	1.660	109.526
14	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	17	1'17.383	1.802	109.325
15	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	19	1'17.434	1.853	109.253
16	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	16	1'17.438	1.856	109.249
17	Will Power	Team Penske	19	1'17.452	1.870	109.229
18	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD	19	1'17.539	1.958	109.105
19	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	14	1'17.548	1.966	109.094
20	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	16	1'17.667	2.086	108.925
21	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	16	1'17.873	2.291	108.638
22	Santino Ferrucci	Juncos Hollinger Racing	16	1'18.504	2.923	107.764
23	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	17	1'19.157	3.576	106.875
24	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	15	1'19.310	3.728	106.670
25	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	13	1'19.430	3.849	106.508
26	Tatiana Calderon	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	13	1'19.668	4.086	106.190
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