McLaughlin leads Penske 1-2 in 16-car test at Barber

McLaughlin turned 104 laps of the 2.366-mile course in Birmingham, AL, setting a best lap of 1m06.222s, two-tenths faster than defending IndyCar champion teammate Power.

Fastest Honda representative was Christian Lundgaard of Rahal Letterman Lanigan, in third, who ran 81 laps to shade 2021 IndyCar champion Alex Palou, who was fastest of the Chip Ganassi Racing quartet.

Two-time champion Josef Newgarden was ill but managed to complete 46 laps, the fastest of which was his 46^th and last in the #2 Penske entry for the day. He was barely quicker than rookie Marcus Armstrong, who delivered on the promise he has shown so far for the Ganassi team, beating two of his teammates, St. Petersburg winner Marcus Ericsson and six-time champion Scott Dixon.

Ericsson suffered the only major incident of the day with an ‘off’ on his out-lap that took the rear wing off his car, on his way to eighth best time, but the repairs to his car meant he only got to run 40 laps.

David Malukas, Dale Coyne Racing with HMD’s series sophomore, slotted into seventh, with Graham Rahal in ninth and Dixon 10^th.

Juri Vips, substituting for Jack Harvey in the #30 RLL car, who has not yet been cleared by IndyCar’s medical team to return to the cockpit, did a solid job to wind up 0.941sec behind the team’s pacesetter Lundgaard.

Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Agustin Canapino produced another creditable effort to run a 1m07.551s on his final flyer, outpacing Sting Ray Robb (Coyne-RWR) and Meyer Shank Racing’s Simon Pagenaud.