Laguna Seca IndyCar: Rosenqvist leads Saturday practice

The Swedish rookie lapped the course in 1min10.406sec, an average speed of 114.433mph, to beat points leader and championship favorite Josef Newgarden by 0.1823sec, with Will Power and Simon Pagenaud in arrears by a mere 0.0042 and 0.0192sec respectively.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Takuma Sato, who was confirmed this morning as a Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda driver again in 2020, sprung to prominence with fifth best time, three-tenths off top spot.

Max Chilton was an encouraging sixth quickest for Carlin-Chevrolet, ahead of Harding Steinbrenner Racing’s Colton Herta.

Defending champion Scott Dixon was eighth fastest, while Graham Rahal made it two RLLR cars in the top 10.

Title contender Alexander Rossi was only 10^th, and like many, he had a minor off that appeared to do no real damage. He was just ahead of his Andretti Autosport teammates Marco Andretti and Conor Daly, driving a fifth AA car in the US Air Force-sponsored entry.

Sebastien Bourdais, who had to skip the ‘warm-up’ session due to neck pain yesterday, completed 22 laps this morning – more than anyone else – although Tristan Vautier is on standby to drive the Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan car should Bourdais be unable to race.

Qualifying begins at 1.30pm local (Pacific) time.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	20	1'10.4065			114.433
2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	18	1'10.5888	0.1823	0.1823	114.137
3	Will Power	Team Penske	18	1'10.5930	0.1865	0.0042	114.130
4	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	19	1'10.6122	0.2057	0.0192	114.099
5	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	19	1'10.7109	0.3044	0.0987	113.940
6	Max Chilton	Carlin	15	1'10.7129	0.3064	0.0020	113.937
7	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	17	1'10.7824	0.3759	0.0695	113.825
8	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	17	1'10.8203	0.4138	0.0379	113.764
9	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	21	1'10.8631	0.4566	0.0428	113.695
10	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	16	1'10.8738	0.4673	0.0107	113.678
11	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	14	1'10.9301	0.5236	0.0563	113.588
12	Conor Daly	Andretti Autosport	17	1'10.9405	0.5340	0.0104	113.571
13	Charlie Kimball	Carlin	15	1'11.0067	0.6002	0.0662	113.465
14	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	22	1'11.0091	0.6026	0.0024	113.462
15	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	16	1'11.0816	0.6751	0.0725	113.346
16	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	17	1'11.1091	0.7026	0.0275	113.302
17	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	18	1'11.1606	0.7541	0.0515	113.220
18	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	17	1'11.2426	0.8361	0.0820	113.090
19	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	18	1'11.4208	1.0143	0.1782	112.807
20	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	17	1'11.4390	1.0325	0.0182	112.779
21	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	18	1'11.4864	1.0799	0.0474	112.704
22	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	15	1'11.5426	1.1361	0.0562	112.615
23	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	17	1'11.7684	1.3619	0.2258	112.261
24	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	18	1'11.7856	1.3791	0.0172	112.234
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