Gateway IndyCar practice: Penske's Newgarden, McLaughlin top

For most of the session, Josef Newgarden led with a 177.562mph lap but as two-lap qualifying simulations got underway, McLaughlin edged ahead with a 177.669.

Then Newgarden delivered a 178.600, just 25.1959sec around the 1.25-mile WWT Raceway, before going still faster with a 178.774mph.

With this 90-minute session being the only practice before qualifying at 4.00pm local (Central) time and the race at 7.40pm, there was a lot of work for everyone to get through, between qualifying sims, race runs on worn tires, and pitstop practice. Sebastien Bourdais of AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet and Penske’s Will Power (2018 winner here) both turned more than 80 laps.

The Andretti Autosport-Hondas looked strong in race trim, and Ryan Hunter-Reay delivered a good mock quali lap with third fastest, ahead of Graham Rahal in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda.

Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson put their Chip Ganassi Racing-Hondas into fifth and sixth, but championship leader Alex Palou – who will take a nine-spot grid penalty for an early engine change following the blow-up at IMS last week – was only 17^th.

Felix Rosenqvist and Pato O’Ward ensured both Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolets were in the top 10, sandwiching the Andretti cars of James Hinchcliffe and Colton Herta.

Ahead of his first ever oval race, Romain Grosjean did a fine job – and turned 72 laps – to clock 11^th fastest time.

P	Name	FTime	Diff	FL	Laps	FSpeed	Engine	Team
1	Josef Newgarden	25.1715	25.1715	53	54	178.774	Chevy	Team Penske
2	Scott McLaughlin	25.3280	0.1565	59	67	177.669	Chevy	Team Penske
3	Ryan Hunter-Reay	25.3462	0.1747	32	41	177.541	Honda	Andretti Autosport
4	Graham Rahal	25.3560	0.1845	57	62	177.473	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
5	Scott Dixon	25.3574	0.1859	37	48	177.463	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
6	Marcus Ericsson	25.3674	0.1959	59	67	177.393	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
7	Felix Rosenqvist	25.4004	0.2289	47	58	177.163	Chevy	Arrow McLaren SP
8	Colton Herta	25.4628	0.2913	50	52	176.728	Honda	Andretti Autosport
9	James Hinchcliffe	25.4632	0.2917	30	50	176.726	Honda	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
10	Pato O'Ward	25.4667	0.2952	35	51	176.701	Chevy	Arrow McLaren SP
11	Romain Grosjean	25.4801	0.3086	68	72	176.608	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
12	Alexander Rossi	25.4968	0.3253	25	50	176.493	Honda	Andretti Autosport
13	Takuma Sato	25.5141	0.3426	60	63	176.373	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
14	Simon Pagenaud	25.5145	0.3430	39	51	176.370	Chevy	Team Penske
15	Ed Jones	25.5550	0.3835	52	57	176.091	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan
16	Will Power	25.5591	0.3876	74	82	176.063	Chevy	Team Penske
17	Alex Palou	25.5818	0.4103	60	65	175.906	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
18	Conor Daly	25.6160	0.4445	7	45	175.671	Chevy	Carlin
19	Jack Harvey	25.6844	0.5129	31	61	175.204	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
20	Tony Kanaan	25.7647	0.5932	47	55	174.658	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
21	Sebastien Bourdais	25.8194	0.6479	10	87	174.288	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
22	Rinus VeeKay	25.8498	0.6783	49	53	174.083	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
23	Dalton Kellett	25.8810	0.7095	32	62	173.873	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
24	Ed Carpenter	25.9922	0.8207	41	60	173.129	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing