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Josef Newgarden’s Iowa Speedway superiority continued as he paced the opening practice session from team-mate McLaughlin ahead of the IndyCar doubleheader weekend at the short oval.
The four-time Iowa winner went around the 0.875-mile oval with a fastest lap of 18.2420s to average 176.428 mph in the #2 Team Penske Chevrolet.
In last year’s doubleheader weekend at Iowa Speedway, Newgarden led 356 of 550 laps, winning the first race and crashing from the lead in the second. Team Penske did not use their test date at Iowa Speedway, but their changes from 2022 were enough to pace the opening practice session.
“As you can see, we’ve got a pretty good package,” Newgarden said on pit road after practice.
“We ran a good first couple of laps and then it was just okay in race trim. I think we need to be a little bit better, this place is tricky. I feel like everyone’s going to be really good this weekend.
“There’s a lot of people that tested [here] and no one stands still here in the IndyCar Series. You’re constantly trying to keep up, so I wasn’t 100 percent where I wanted to be but I felt like we had plenty of potential to get where we needed to.”
Scott McLaughlin was second fastest in the #2 Team Penske Chevrolet, just .0477s seconds slower than Newgarden.
Marcus Ericsson was third fastest in the #8 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet ahead of Colton Herta and Pato O’Ward.
There was no wall contact in the session but there were two yellow flags for close calls. Agustin Canapino spun the #78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet just past the halfway point in the session as he exited pit road.
The Argentinian did not hit anything but briefly slid onto the low portion of the racing line in Turn 2 and stalled on the apron, necessitating a yellow flag. The IndyCar safety team restarted the car and Canapino finished the session.
The second yellow flag came out after Santino Ferrucci ran very high in Turn 2 after some close dicing with Romain Grosjean. Grosjean went underneath Ferrucci going into Turn 1 and the two went through the first corner very close, forcing Ferrucci to back off.
The #14 A. J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet managed to avoid wall contact, but slowed enough to warrant a caution flag with fewer than 10 minutes remaining in the 90 minute practice session.
New Zealander Scott Dixon was 10th fastest out of 28 cars. Qualifying is Saturday July 22 at 08:30 CT/23:30 AEST.
