IndyCar Mid-Ohio: McLaren’s O’Ward fastest in first practice

Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward set the fastest time in the opening IndyCar practice session at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Friday afternoon.

O’Ward topped the 75-minute session around the 13-turn, 2.258-mile road course with a best lap of 1m06.4935s, ahead of points leader Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing.

Josef Newgarden set the early pace with a lap of 1m07.3573 in his Chevrolet-powered Team Penske entry, but was then shaded by Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist at 1m07.3249s and Will Power (Penske) slotted into P2 with 1m07.3407s.

Series dominator Palou jumped to the top with 1m07.3073s before Christian Lundgaard then vaulted ahead with 1m07.2834s for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. The top six cars were covered by less than a tenth of a second at that point.

In the final 10 minutes, teams switched to the red alternate tires from the harder blacks that they had been running until then. O’Ward took over in P1 with 1m06.4935s, with Palou taking P2 with 1m06.8558s, ahead of CGR team-mate Marcus Ericsson.

Lundgaard improved his time to 1m07.0262s in fourth, but complained of a lack of front-end grip, with Andretti Autosport duo Kyle Kirkwood and Romain Grosjean next up.

Penske pair Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin finished the session in seventh and eighth respectively.

Helio Castroneves brought out the red flag when he spun his Meyer Shank Racing car on the exit of Turn 5 and needed his engine restarting. Grosjean suffered a grassy trip across the run-off at Turn 4 and continued, while Alexander Rossi took wild rides at Turn 11 and Turn 1 on his way to ninth.

Colton Herta rounded out the top 10 for Andretti. Santino Ferrucci lost track time due to a throttle issue with his AJ Foyt Racing entry.

Second practice takes place at 9:45am local time on Saturday.

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Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	25	1'06.4935
2	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	23	1'06.8558	0.3623
3	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	24	1'06.9779	0.4844
4	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	27	1'07.0262	0.5327
5	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	21	1'07.0269	0.5334
6	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	22	1'07.1175	0.6240
7	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	30	1'07.1401	0.6466
8	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	24	1'07.1531	0.6596
9	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	25	1'07.1953	0.7018
10	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	20	1'07.2166	0.7231
11	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	24	1'07.2674	0.7739
12	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	21	1'07.3206	0.8271
13	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	23	1'07.3249	0.8314
14	Will Power	Team Penske	28	1'07.3407	0.8472
15	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	25	1'07.4275	0.9340
16	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	23	1'07.4346	0.9411
17	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	26	1'07.4613	0.9678
18	Marcus Armstrong	Chip Ganassi Racing	29	1'07.5083	1.0148
19	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	22	1'07.6082	1.1147
20	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	23	1'07.6215	1.1280
21	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Ed Carpenter Racing	25	1'07.7272	1.2337
22	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	23	1'07.7347	1.2412
23	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger Racing	32	1'07.8378	1.3443
24	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	10	1'07.8785	1.3850
25	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	23	1'08.0703	1.5768
26	Ray Robb	Dale Coyne Racing	26	1'08.3577	1.8642
27	Benjamin Pedersen	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	32	1'08.9832	2.4897
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