Daly 12th in warm-up, Pagenaud claims “I’ve raced feeling much worse!”

Daly finished 12^th fastest in the 27-car field during the 30-minute warm-up on Sunday morning in his Honda-powered MSR machine. Today will be his first start in the series since the Detroit street race last month.

“Honestly, I was still just getting used to things,” Daly – who lost his Ed Carpenter Racing drive before Road America – told NBC Peacock. “This team does a great job, they’ve helped me so much, just studying stuff that I can look at, that’s been so helpful.

“It’s tough to jump into this series, but honestly that’s probably the best warm-up I’ve had all season! It felt pretty good. It’s something I enjoyed, but there’s so much to unlock when you get into a new package like this.

“But that’s what the race is for, we’ll just work on it. I appreciate the opportunity. We can only go forwards, so strategically we wanna go opposite of what everyone else does. Use clear track when we can go move forwards. I think we can.

“I don’t know how the tires degrade here yet, but I enjoyed the primaries and got to run on the reds, so I got a bit of everything. So it’s one stint at a time.”

Simon Pagenaud, Meyer Shank Racing Honda

Photo by: Gavin Baker / Motorsport Images

Pagenaud was refused clearance to race by IndyCar medical following his huge accident in practice yesterday, which was caused by a brake failure.

His six and a half somersaults were preceded by an 83g impact, after his car had been launched airborne by a grass verge at well over 150mph and into the gravel trap.

“I’m feeling good, everything is fine,” said Pagenaud before today’s warm-up. “Unfortunately, you’ve just got to follow what the medical staff are saying.

“We have an incredible medical team behind us, and their choice is for me not to race today and I respect it quite frankly. I’m a pro at what I do, I can tell them when a racecar is good or not, so they can tell me about my health.

“I’m a racer, I just wanna go race. Honestly, I’ve raced feeling much worse! It’s definitely going to be tough today to watch from the bench but it’s what’s best for the team and me, and I respect the decision of the doctors.

“I hope Conor can do a really good job, happy for him to have the opportunity today, and I hope he will bring a lot of points to the team.”