Graham Rahal helped start Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s weekend on a great note as he led the 90-minute opening practice session for Saturday’s IndyCar Series’ Gallagher Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
The #15 Honda went around the 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course in 1:09.8421s to average 125.718mph. Felix Rosenqvist was second-fastest in the #6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, 0.0846s adrift of Rahal’s time.
“I think those reds [alternate compound tires] threw everyone for a loop compared to the May race, it’s a different compound back to 2021,” Rahal said.
“It was way more understeer than what we were probably expecting, so I think there’s even a lot more time in it for us. But the Code 3 Associates car was solid this morning the whole session.
“We were probably the only guys that were improving on the blacks on Lap 15, so I like it.
“We’ll see how qualifying goes, but I feel confident, particularly in the race car. I think that over the course of that 15 to 20 laps on blacks, we really didn’t get much degradation, which I was pleased with.”
Christian Lundgaard made it two RLL cars in the top three as he was third fastest, 0.2825s off of Rahal’s pace. Alexander Rossi was fourth in the #7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet ahead of IndyCar points leader Alex Palou in fifth.
A pair of Scotts were sixth and seventh as McLaughlin led Dixon. Fellow Kiwi Marcus Armstrong was 11th while Toowoomba’s Will Power was 20th-fastest out of 27 cars.
The session had only one red flag when Pato O’Ward spun just after the halfway point of the session. The #5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet spun after hitting the kerb outside of Turn 13, coming to a stop and stalling after moving through the grass.
After a restart from the safety team, O’Ward served a five-minute penalty for causing a red flag in practice. Eventually the Mexican racer placed the eighth-fastest lap in the session.
The entire field was covered by just over one-and-a-half seconds.
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