Herta lands first blow in IndyCar Spring Training
Colton Herta put Harding Steinbrenner Racing on top in the opening two hours of IndyCar Spring Training, with his final lap of the session.
The 2018 Indy Lights runner-up wheeled his #88 HSR-Honda to a best lap of 1min48.7443sec around the 3.427-mile course, edging fellow rookie Marcus Ericsson of Arrow Schmidt Peterson-Honda by 0.0949sec with an average speed of 112.889mph.
Third fastest was the quickest Chevrolet, the Team Penske entry of 2017 champion Josef Newgarden, who beat another rookie – RC Enerson in the Carlin-Chevy – by 0.19sec.
Zach Veach and Marco Andretti were top of the Andretti Autosport-Hondas, ahead of defending champion Scott Dixon in the Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda, while Spencer Pigot (Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevy), Alexander Rossi (Andretti) and Max Chilton (Carlin) completed the top 10.
Felix Rosenqvist was 12th in the second Ganassi entry, Santino Ferrucci was sandwiched by two Penske cars in his Dale Coyne Racing entry and was also faster than teammate Sebastien Bourdais. Helio Castroneves is in a fourth Penske, preparing for May's IndyCar Grand Prix on the Indianapolis road course.
Matheus Leist was 11th, 1.6sec ahead of Tony Kanaan in the second AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy, while Kyle Kaiser’s Juncos Racing-Chevy failed to set a representative time after suffering clutch problems.
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About this article
| Series | IndyCar |
| Event | COTA February testing |
| Drivers | Colton Herta |
| Teams | Harding Racing |
| Author | David Malsher-Lopez |
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