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IndyCar St. Petersburg

IndyCar St. Petersburg: Felix Rosenqvist paces opening practice

Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist delivered a late surge to lead opening practice for the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

Felix Rosenqvist, Meyer Shank Racing Honda

Running the softer alternate tires, the Swede dropped a stout lap of 1m00.3390s around the 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary street circuit to go top of the leaderboard in the final segment of the session in Friday's practice.

The performance by Rosenqvist, who made the switch from Arrow McLaren to MSR over the offseason, was a sizable 0.4722s ahead of former team-mate Pato O’Ward.

Deployed on a trial basis in St. Petersburg, the field was split into two groups for the opening 75-minute practice. The format featured a 20-minute “All Cars” session to begin the session, then following that, each group – split by odd and even numbered pit boxes – received two 10-minute segments on an alternating basis. Similar to qualifying, the clock for segment one and two stopped for the first red flag condition of each practice segment.

 

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong ended up third, 0.4792s behind.

Will Power, who was running in the penultimate segment opposite of Rosenqvist, O’Ward and Armstrong, put his No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet in fourth (+0.5019s).

Rinus Veekay also presented an early encouraging showing in the No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet in fifth (+0.5458s). Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske), Romain Grosjean (Juncos Hollinger Racing) and Colton Herta (Andretti Global) completed spots sixth to eighth.

Reigning and two-time IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou put his No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda in ninth.

Callum Ilott, substituting for the injured David Malukas, managed to establish the No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet in 10th. There were three red flags throughout the entirety of the practice, all of which came in Turn 10.

The first incident came with roughly seven minutes remaining during the second segment when Chip Ganassi Racing rookie Kyffin Simpson brought out the red flag after locking up and ending up stranded in the runoff. Less than five minutes later, Pietro Fittipaldi (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing) endured a similar fate in Turn 10 to bring out a second red flag.

The last red flag came out for Santino Ferrucci for also blowing the corner in the final two minutes of practice, which was able to resume and finish under green conditions moments later.

1
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3
Cla Driver # Laps Time Interval Mph
1 Sweden F. Rosenqvist Meyer Shank Racing 60 24

1'00.3390

107.393
2 Mexico P. O'Ward Arrow McLaren 5 18

+0.4722

1'00.8112

0.4722 106.559
3 New Zealand M. Armstrong Chip Ganassi Racing 11 23

+0.4792

1'00.8182

0.0070 106.547
4 Australia W. Power Team Penske 12 20

+0.5019

1'00.8409

0.0227 106.507
5 Netherlands R. van Kalmthout Ed Carpenter Racing 21 21

+0.5458

1'00.8848

0.0439 106.431
6 New Zealand S. McLaughlin Team Penske 3 23

+0.5716

1'00.9106

0.0258 106.385
7 France R. Grosjean Juncos Hollinger Racing 77 19

+0.5856

1'00.9246

0.0140 106.361
8 United States C. Herta Andretti Global with Curb-Agajanian 26 23

+0.6547

1'00.9937

0.0691 106.240
9 Spain A. Palou Chip Ganassi Racing 10 17

+0.6810

1'01.0200

0.0263 106.195
10 United Kingdom C. Ilott Arrow McLaren 6 23

+0.7155

1'01.0545

0.0345 106.135
11 United States J. Newgarden Team Penske 2 19

+0.7216

1'01.0606

0.0061 106.124
12 New Zealand S. Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing 9 20

+0.7338

1'01.0728

0.0122 106.103
13 Denmark C. Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 45 19

+0.7537

1'01.0927

0.0199 106.068
14 United States A. Rossi Arrow McLaren 7 21

+0.9074

1'01.2464

0.1537 105.802
15 United States K. Kirkwood Andretti Global 27 18

+0.9086

1'01.2476

0.0012 105.800
16 Argentina A. Canapino Juncos Hollinger Racing 78 22

+0.9433

1'01.2823

0.0347 105.740
17 Sweden M. Ericsson Andretti Global 28 21

+0.9681

1'01.3071

0.0248 105.697
18 Sweden L. Lundqvist Chip Ganassi Racing 8 28

+0.9987

1'01.3377

0.0306 105.645
19
C. Rasmussen Ed Carpenter Racing
20 21

+1.0394

1'01.3784

0.0407 105.575
20 United States S. Ferrucci A.J. Foyt Enterprises 14 19

+1.1853

1'01.5243

0.1459 105.324
21 United Kingdom J. Harvey Dale Coyne Racing 18 26

+1.2878

1'01.6268

0.1025 105.149
22 United States G. Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 15 24

+1.2913

1'01.6303

0.0035 105.143
23 United States K. Simpson Chip Ganassi Racing 4 23

+1.3833

1'01.7223

0.0920 104.986
24
R. Robb A.J. Foyt Enterprises
41 20

+1.6946

1'02.0336

0.3113 104.460
25 United Kingdom T. Blomqvist Meyer Shank Racing 66 13

+1.7334

1'02.0724

0.0388 104.394
26 Brazil P. Fittipaldi Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 30 24

+2.3142

1'02.6532

0.5808 103.426
27 United States C. Braun Dale Coyne Racing 51 23

+3.4172

1'03.7562

1.1030 101.637
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