Long Beach IndyCar: Herta tops first practice, Palou shines

While the track was still green, Romain Grosjean and Josef Newgarden had incidents at Turn 9 within two minutes of each other – the Dale Coyne Racing with RWR driver slid slightly long but reversed and continued, while the Penske driver locked up when his front wheels got airborne over a bump. His spin resulted in him merely kissing the tire wall, but when he tried to get going again, the car stalled. His restart required a red flag.

Colton Herta then became the first driver under the 70sec barrier with a 69.8160sec, before two-time Long Beach-winning teammate Alexander Rossi clipped 0.022sec off that time to go top.

Then the reds flew again, as Oliver Askew struck a wall with the right-rear of his Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda, bending a wishbone and flattening a tire at Turn 1. This came not long after the 2019 Indy Lights champion, who has never raced at Long Beach before, had already grazed his left-side front and rear tires. Out came the second red.

Herta then cut more than half a second from his best to turn the first 102mph lap of the weekend, while teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay made it an Andretti Autosport 1-2-3, and then James Hinchcliffe made it an AA 1-2-3-4, despite a lock-up at Turn 9.

Dalton Kellett made the same error but skidded straight on, necessitating a third red flag to retrieve the AJ Foyt Racing car from the runoff, just as Chip Ganassi Racing’s outgoing six-time champion Scott Dixon slid on at Turn 1 and gently kissed the tire barriers.

Then Ganassi’s likely incoming champion Palou upset the Andretti symmetry with a 69.4554, while Simon Pagenaud – earlier to be found down an escape road – jumped ahead of him to clinch second.

At the session’s close, as the track picked up pace, Felix Rosenqvist delivered fourth-best time, while his title contending teammate at Arrow McLaren SP, Pato O’Ward was a very disconsolate 16^th.

Hunter-Reay retained fifth ahead of Meyer Shank Racing-Honda’s Helio Castroneves who has started this race from pole four times and holds the lap record here (2017).

Rookie Scott McLaughlin was second fastest of the Team Penske-Chevys with seventh, while Romain Grosjean – another Long Beach newbie – finished 10^th.

Jimmie Johnson clocked 27^th, 2sec off the pace, after a couple of confidence-sapping spins.