IndyCar GP Indy: Ericsson tops warm-up, start time brought forward

Ericsson lapped the 2.439-mile 14-turn in 71.0839sec, an average speed of 123.522, while Callum Ilott put Juncos Hollinger-Chevrolet in the spotlight again with an eye-catching second-fastest time. He will roll off seventh on the grid this afternoon.

No drivers touched their alternate tires in a morning session held in 81degF ambient temperatures with a track temp of 107degF. Although drivers are expecting severe tire degradation across the three-stop/four-stint race, the Firestone alternate tires are some 1sec per lap faster, so teams will want to spend as many laps as possible on these red sidewalled tires to minimize time loss.

Felix Rosenqvist’s strong weekend continued with third fastest time ahead of Colton Herta of Andretti Autosport-Honda and two of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda drivers, Jack Harvey and Graham Rahal.

Although polesitter Will Power was only ninth fastest, he set the fastest average across 10 laps.

He will lead the field to the green flag at 3.07pm local (Eastern), 38 minutes earlier than originally intended, as IndyCar seeks to avoid or minimize the effect of the storms expected to hit the area this afternoon, while also remaining in the NBC TV window.

The second Indy Lights race of the weekend has therefore also been brought forward, to 1.05pm local time.

P	Name	FTime	Diff	Laps	FSpeed	Engine	Team
1	Marcus Ericsson	1:11.0839		19	123.522	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
2	Callum Ilott	1:11.1970	0.1131	17	123.325	Chevy	Juncos Hollinger Racing
3	Felix Rosenqvist	1:11.2391	0.1552	22	123.253	Chevy	Arrow McLaren SP
4	Colton Herta	1:11.2552	0.1713	19	123.225	Honda	Andretti Autosport
5	Jack Harvey	1:11.2630	0.1791	20	123.211	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
6	Graham Rahal	1:11.2646	0.1807	19	123.208	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
7	Josef Newgarden	1:11.3181	0.2342	19	123.116	Chevy	Team Penske
8	Alex Palou	1:11.4134	0.3295	20	122.952	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
9	Will Power	1:11.4339	0.3500	20	122.916	Chevy	Team Penske
10	Christian Lundgaard	1:11.4345	0.3506	20	122.915	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
11	Scott Dixon	1:11.5390	0.4551	20	122.736	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
12	Rinus VeeKay	1:11.6531	0.5692	22	122.540	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
13	Pato O'Ward	1:11.7644	0.6805	20	122.350	Chevy	Arrow McLaren SP
14	David Malukas	1:11.7778	0.6939	16	122.328	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
15	Alexander Rossi	1:11.7789	0.6950	17	122.326	Honda	Andretti Autosport
16	Simon Pagenaud	1:11.7839	0.7000	18	122.317	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
17	Scott McLaughlin	1:11.8086	0.7247	21	122.275	Chevy	Team Penske
18	Jimmie Johnson	1:11.8732	0.7893	22	122.165	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
19	Devlin DeFrancesco	1:11.9935	0.9096	19	121.961	Honda	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
20	Conor Daly	1:12.0796	0.9957	20	121.815	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
21	Takuma Sato	1:12.1549	1.0710	22	121.688	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
22	Kyle Kirkwood	1:12.1971	1.1132	17	121.617	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
23	Juan Pablo Montoya	1:12.2614	1.1775	16	121.509	Chevy	Arrow McLaren SP
24	Helio Castroneves	1:12.2783	1.1944	17	121.480	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
25	Romain Grosjean	1:12.3157	1.2318	20	121.418	Honda	Andretti Autosport
26	Dalton Kellett	1:12.5358	1.4519	20	121.049	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
27	Tatiana Calderon	1:12.7262	1.6423	16	120.732	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises