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Friday at the Circuit of the Americas

Published on 22 Mar 2019 22:18
1
By: Fergal Walsh

IndyCar makes its debut at the Circuit of the Americas this weekend, which is most well known for hosting the US Grand Prix.

However with the Formula 1 race months away, IndyCar makes use of the tarmac, with the second round of the NTT IndyCar Series travelling to Austin, Texas to the circuit that was opened in 2012.

The first two practice sessions were held on Friday as drivers prepare for qualifying on Saturday and the race on Sunday.

Free practice one

Running during the first session was limited, with a blown engine for Colton Herta costing the drivers 15 minutes of track time. Despite the problems from the young American, he ended the session in second place, behind championship leader Josef Newgarden.

There was a scurry for improvements after Herta's drama had been cleared up. However, very few of the drivers managed to set a faster lap time.

Alexander Rossi was third for Andretti, while his teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay was a long way off in fourth. Graham Rahal was sixth, while the almost winner of the St. Petersburg race Felix Rosenqvist was sixth for Chip Ganassi Racing.

Patricio O'Ward made his first appearance of the season for Carlin, but ended the session further down the order.

Free practice one results

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1.	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1:48.6567	-
2.	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	1:48.7939	0.1372
3.	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1:49.0456	0.3889
4.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1:49.5011	0.8444
5.	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1:49.5076	0.8509
6.	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	1:49.6846	1.0279
7.	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	1:49.7204	1.0637
8.	Will Power	Team Penske	1:49.7380	1.0813
9.	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1:49.8542	1.1975
10.	Max Chilton	Carlin	1:50.0187	1.3620
11.	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1:50.0667	1.4100
12.	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1:50.2005	1.5438
13.	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1:50.2346	1.5779
14.	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	1:50.3046	1.6479
15.	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	1:50.3986	1.7419
16.	Patricio O'Ward	Carlin	1:50.4896	1.8329
17.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	1:50.5477	1.8910
18.	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	1:50.9096	2.2529
19.	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1:51.0908	2.4341
20.	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	1:51.3202	2.6635
21.	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	1:51.5130	2.8563
22.	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1:51.7326	3.0759
23.	Kyle Kaiser	Juncos Racing	1:51.7955	3.1388
24.	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	1:52.6301	3.9734

Free practice two

There were no major dramas in the second session, with Team Penske continuing to lead the timesheets. However, this time around it was Will Power out on top, marginally ahead of rookie Felix Rosenqvist and Andretti Autosport's Alexander Rossi.

Once again, Hunter-Reay followed Rossi in fourth place, but ended the session ahead of Ed Jones who is running despite breaking a bone in his finger at St. Petersburg two weeks ago.

Zach Veach made it three out of the four Andretti's inside the top ten, as he headed Team Penske's Simon Pagenaud. Pagenaud's teammate Josef Newgarden was two places further down the order, with Takuma Sato lodged in between. Sebastian Bourdais rounded out the top ten.

After his engine blew up this morning, Colton Herta was late joining the session for Harding Steinbrenner Racing in an additional session that acts as the warm-up and hot pitstop practice.

Free practice two results

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1.	Will Power	Team Penske	1'47.4401	-
2.	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'47.6150	0.1749
3.	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1'47.9311	0.4910
4.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1'48.1209	0.6808
5.	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'48.1597	0.7196
6.	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	1'48.1988	0.7587
7.	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	1'48.2728	0.8327
8.	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'48.3484	0.9083
9.	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'48.4497	1.0096
10.	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	1'48.4585	1.0184
11.	Patricio O'Ward	Carlin	1'48.5212	1.0811
12.	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'48.5311	1.0910
13.	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'48.5328	1.0927
14.	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	1'48.5541	1.1140
15.	Max Chilton	Carlin	1'48.5643	1.1242
16.	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'48.5735	1.1334
17.	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'48.9461	1.5060
18	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'49.0534	1.6133
19.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	1'49.1639	1.7238
20.	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'49.2359	1.7958
21.	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	1'49.2512	1.8111
22.	Kyle Kaiser	Juncos Racing	1'50.5787	3.1386
23.	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'51.6903	4.2502

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Replies (1)

Ram Samartha

Posts: 1,172
Hey Fergal, any chance of getting some highlights of FE weekends as well? I don't know about others but I like the FE racing scene as much, if not more than then IndyCar. Unfortunately the races aren't always available to watch on race weekends, so it would be nice to see some news. Some good racing going on there from the races I've seen so far this season.
- + 0
- Mar 22 2019 - 23:30