Mid-Ohio IndyCar: Malukas leads race day warm-up

Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda’s championship leader Marcus Ericsson, was the first driver to duck under 68sec barrier with a 67.9714sec on a set of primary Firestones, an average of 119.591mph around the 2.258-mile course.

That left him 0.0407sec ahead of the time set by Josef Newgarden with alternate compound Firestones on his Team Penske-Chevrolet. This pair will start alongside each other on the seventh row.

It was a very busy session, with at least 20 of the 27 cars on track at all times, as most drivers used the warm-up to check out the characteristics and durability of both compounds of tires.

With 12 of the 30 minutes left on the clock, Juncos Hollinger Racing-Chevy’s Callum Ilott delivered a 68.09sec lap to go third fastest, three tenths ahead of Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevy.

Then with four minutes to go, Alex Palou, who will start seventh, edged ahead of teammate Ericsson by 0.0065sec on alternates, before being usurped by David Malukas of Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports-Honda, who averaged 120.051mph to top the session by a quarter second.

Scott McLaughlin of Penske moved up to sixth fastest in the closing stages, ahead of Colton Herta who was fastest of the Andretti Autosport-Hondas and moved ahead of Rinus VeeKay.

The drivers will get the command to start engines for the Honda Indy 200 at 12.45pm local (Eastern) time.

P	Name	FTime	Diff	FL	Laps	FSpeed	Engine	Tire	Team
1	David Malukas	1:07.7110	-	20	22	120.051	Honda	A	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
2	Alex Palou	1:07.9649	0.2539	19	23	119.603	Honda	A	Chip Ganassi Racing
3	Marcus Ericsson	1:07.9714	0.2604	7	21	119.591	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
4	Josef Newgarden	1:08.0121	0.3011	5	23	119.520	Chevy	A	Team Penske
5	Callum Ilott	1:08.0900	0.3790	11	20	119.383	Chevy	A	Juncos Hollinger Racing
6	Scott McLaughlin	1:08.2246	0.5136	19	22	119.148	Chevy	A	Team Penske
7	Colton Herta	1:08.2509	0.5399	18	20	119.102	Honda	A	Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
8	Rinus VeeKay	1:08.4093	0.6983	14	23	118.826	Chevy	A	Ed Carpenter Racing
9	Alexander Rossi	1:08.4440	0.7330	15	19	118.766	Honda	A	Andretti Autosport
10	Takuma Sato	1:08.4486	0.7376	18	23	118.758	Honda	A	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
11	Will Power	1:08.4530	0.7420	18	18	118.750	Chevy	P	Team Penske
12	Devlin DeFrancesco	1:08.5203	0.8093	16	18	118.633	Honda	A	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
13	Helio Castroneves	1:08.6307	0.9197	15	23	118.443	Honda	A	Meyer Shank Racing
14	Simon Pagenaud	1:08.6531	0.9421	15	21	118.404	Honda	A	Meyer Shank Racing
15	Kyle Kirkwood	1:08.6963	0.9853	20	20	118.330	Chevy	P	AJ Foyt Enterprises
16	Romain Grosjean	1:08.7200	1.0090	6	18	118.289	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport
17	Pato O'Ward	1:08.7963	1.0853	8	21	118.158	Chevy	P	Arrow McLaren SP
18	Scott Dixon	1:08.8403	1.1293	19	20	118.082	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
19	Graham Rahal	1:08.9644	1.2534	15	18	117.870	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
20	Felix Rosenqvist	1:09.0669	1.3559	7	23	117.695	Chevy	P	Arrow McLaren SP
21	Conor Daly	1:09.4449	1.7339	6	20	117.054	Chevy	P	Ed Carpenter Racing
22	Jack Harvey	1:09.4610	1.7500	19	20	117.027	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
23	Jimmie Johnson	1:09.5173	1.8063	9	22	116.932	Honda	A	Chip Ganassi Racing
24	Tatiana Calderon	1:09.5966	1.8856	18	19	116.799	Chevy	A	AJ Foyt Enterprises
25	Christian Lundgaard	1:09.6953	1.9843	7	16	116.633	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
26	Simona De Silvestro	1:10.0380	2.3270	10	23	116.063	Chevy	P	Paretta Autosport
27	Dalton Kellett	1:10.1048	2.3938	7	22	115.952	Chevy	A	AJ Foyt Enterprises