Kirkwood ends final test session on top, Ericsson tops Day 2

Kyle Kirkwood topped the final session in IndyCar’s official preseason test at Thermal Club, although Marcus Ericsson’s time from this morning remained fastest overall.

Kirkwood lapped the 17-turn 3.076-mile course in 1min38.8279sec, an average speed of 111.721mph, but it fell 0.4sec short of Ericsson’s benchmark for Ganassi from this morning’s session. The series sophomore, who is about to embark on his first season with Andretti Autosport-Honda, might have improved still further, had he not suffered a brake fire after a mild off-course excursion.

That caused one of five red flags, with both Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske-Chevrolet falling off the asphalt, along with Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren-Chevrolet and Christian Lundgaard of Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda.

A mere 0.0125sec behind Kirkwood was the impressive Callum Ilott, whose Juncos Hollinger Racing team has impressed in its first test since expanding to two cars. Ilott’s rookie teammate Agustin Canapino ended the fourth session in 20^th, 0.85sec adrift of his teammate, but ahead of two RLL cars, both Ed Carpenter Racing cars and both AJ Foyt Racing cars.

Marcus Armstrong was top rookie, edging his Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda teammate Alex Palou by 0.03sec, as he prepares to tackle the road and street courses in the #11 entry.

Two-time and defending champion Will Power moved up to fifth, 0.1062sec off the ultimate, and a mere four hundredths ahead of his old teammate Simon Pagenaud of Meyer Shank Racing-Honda.

Yesterday’s pacesetter Colton Herta was seventh for Andretti, just ahead of Newgarden who was eighth fastest despite his incident.

Scott Dixon turned the most laps (35) on his way to ninth, ahead of the swiftest of the Arrow McLaren SP-Chevys, driven by Alexander Rossi.

Despite Thermal Club’s combo of North and South tracks lap being longer than all but one of the courses on the IndyCar schedules, the 27 cars present were covered by just 1.5sec.

P	Name	FTime	Diff	FL	Laps	FSpeed	Engine	Team
1	Kyle Kirkwood	1:38.8279	1:38.8279	8	10	111.721	Honda	Andretti Autosport
2	Callum Ilott	1:38.8404	0.0125	10	23	111.707	Chevy	Juncos Hollinger Racing
3	Marcus Armstrong	1:38.8409	0.0130	17	24	111.707	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
4	Alex Palou	1:38.8718	0.0439	15	31	111.672	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
5	Will Power	1:38.9341	0.1062	18	23	111.602	Chevy	Team Penske
6	Simon Pagenaud	1:38.9769	0.1490	9	22	111.553	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
7	Colton Herta	1:39.1047	0.2768	11	16	111.409	Honda	Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
8	Josef Newgarden	1:39.1739	0.3460	11	19	111.332	Chevy	Team Penske
9	Scott Dixon	1:39.2377	0.4098	32	35	111.260	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
10	Alexander Rossi	1:39.2500	0.4221	19	19	111.246	Chevy	Arrow McLaren
11	Christian Lundgaard	1:39.2842	0.4563	7	28	111.208	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
12	Marcus Ericsson	1:39.3425	0.5146	8	28	111.143	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
13	Romain Grosjean	1:39.3547	0.5268	15	34	111.129	Honda	Andretti Autosport
14	David Malukas	1:39.3668	0.5389	24	33	111.116	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
15	Helio Castroneves	1:39.4114	0.5835	15	31	111.066	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
16	Scott McLaughlin	1:39.4290	0.6011	11	33	111.046	Chevy	Team Penske
17	Pato O'Ward	1:39.4310	0.6031	2	26	111.044	Chevy	Arrow McLaren
18	Devlin DeFrancesco	1:39.6640	0.8361	7	27	110.784	Honda	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
19	Felix Rosenqvist	1:39.6821	0.8542	3	20	110.764	Chevy	Arrow McLaren
20	Agustin Canapino	1:39.7039	0.8760	12	25	110.740	Chevy	Juncos Holling Racing
21	Graham Rahal	1:39.7432	0.9153	18	25	110.696	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
22	Jack Harvey	1:39.8567	1.0288	7	25	110.570	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
23	Sting Ray Robb	1:39.8983	1.0704	16	27	110.524	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
24	Rinus VeeKay	1:40.0806	1.2527	12	28	110.323	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
25	Benjamin Pedersen	1:40.1297	1.3018	19	27	110.269	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
26	Conor Daly	1:40.2270	1.3991	15	27	110.162	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
27	Santino Ferrucci	1:40.2833	1.4554	13	26	110.100	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises