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Pato O’Ward led the 27-car IndyCar Series field in the first practice of the Indy 200 weekend at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
The 2022 Mid-Ohio pole-sitter set a fastest lap of 1:06.4935s, averaging 122.250mph around the 13-turn, 2.258-mile natural terrain road course.
O’Ward’s fastest lap was actually faster than his 2022 pole-winning lap of 1:06.7054s.
“Good start here at Mid-Ohio,” O’Ward said.
“We made some good changes to the car and end up from the practice in a really nice spot. Looking forward to tomorrow.
“It will be interesting to see if the rain decides to make an appearance or not, but so far so good.”
IndyCar points leader Alex Palou was second fastest, 0.3623 seconds behind O’Ward’s best time.
Marcus Ericsson was third fastest ahead of Christian Lundgaard in fourth place.
Lundgaard’s pace is promising for the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing squad. Though the team is based in Zionsville, Indiana, team co-owner Bobby Rahal and son/driver Graham Rahal are both from Ohio and are massive promoters of their spiritual home race.
Lundgaard’s top 10 finish at the most recent IndyCar race at Road America put pressure on the Danish driver, especially after a modest technical reshuffling among the three cars on the team following a lacklustre performance at the Indianapolis 500.
“I think coming into here we expected obviously to be fast, considering our road course performance the entire year,” Lundgaard said.
“But leaving Road America, a track that has just been resurfaced, with a track that hasn’t been resurfaced lately, we also knew it would be a different sort of balance in the car, tougher to drive. It certainly was something to handle out there.
“It’s quick. So that’s the positives, I guess. We covered a lot of things in the practice session in terms of items we wanted to try. I think we’re pretty satisfied at this point.”
Kyle Kirkwood was fifth fastest in the #27 Andretti Autosport Honda. The Florida native has over a dozen wins at Mid-Ohio in junior formulae competition and is looking to add another win to that sizable amount.
Those wins come from F4 U.S., Formula Regional Americas, USF2000, USF Pro 2000 and Indy NXT and those laps help Kirkwood’s preparation significantly.
“I probably have twice the amount of time around this place than I do anywhere else so, I mean, that’s huge, right,” Kirkwood said.
“Just confidence level when you go out for the first couple laps, you’re not uncomfortable by any sense. That’s the main thing. That just makes the weekend go smoother.
“When you’re not on the back foot in the first session, everything can go smooth, you start nailing what you need right away instead of sorting out the driving portion and then figuring out what you need to do.”
A few drivers had very minor off-track excursions in the 75-minute session but there was only one red flag for a spin.
2000 and 2001 Mid-Ohio winner Helio Castroneves spun coming through Turn 6 and stalled his engine when his car went to the grass off the corner.
The safety team restarted the #06 Meyer Shank Racing Honda and Castroneves made his way back to pit road.
