Practice report

Road America IndyCar: Newgarden leads final practice

Championship leader Josef Newgarden put the #2 Team Penske-Chevrolet at the top of the times in final practice for the REV Group Grand Prix at Road America, although some of his rivals had their best laps interrupted by a red flag caused by a spin for Graham Rahal.

Despite running primaries Newgarden turned the fastest lap of the weekend with a 1min42.8825sec lap of the fabulous 4.014-mile track near Elkhart Lake, WI., beating Colton Herta’s Harding Steinbrenner Racing-Honda by 0.2872sec.

IndyCar allowed drivers one last timed lap after the red flag, and Newgarden’s teammate Will Power improved despite the primary tires taking longer to warm up than the red alternates. He leapfrogged to third ahead of two Andretti Autosport-Hondas of Ryan Hunter-Reay and Alexander Rossi.

Spencer Pigot was a highly impressive sixth for Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevy ahead of Felix Rosenqvist who was again the faster of the two Chip Ganassi Racing-Hondas.

Santino Ferrucci clocked eighth fastest for Dale Coyne Racing, ahead of fellow rookie Patricio O’Ward in the Carlin-Chevy who twitched off course but swerved around the Chevy trackside signage.

Rahal’s spin came as he exited right-handed Turn 6 on a flying lap, slithered over the exit curb and spun to the inside, brushing the wall with his left rear and scraping it with his wing. He was more disappointed at the team’s relative lack of pace this weekend, as the two Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Hondas wound up 16^th and 18^th.

Qualifying begins at 3pm local (Central) time.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	11	1'42.8825			140.455
2	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	12	1'43.1697	0.2872	0.2872	140.064
3	Will Power	Team Penske	15	1'43.1838	0.3013	0.0141	140.045
4	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	12	1'43.2023	0.3198	0.0185	140.020
5	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	10	1'43.3341	0.4516	0.1318	139.842
6	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	16	1'43.4158	0.5333	0.0817	139.731
7	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	15	1'43.5405	0.6580	0.1247	139.563
8	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	16	1'43.6716	0.7891	0.1311	139.386
9	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	12	1'43.7367	0.8542	0.0651	139.299
10	Patricio O'Ward	Carlin	13	1'43.7567	0.8742	0.0200	139.272
11	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	15	1'43.7580	0.8755	0.0013	139.270
12	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	14	1'43.7962	0.9137	0.0382	139.219
13	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	15	1'43.8598	0.9773	0.0636	139.134
14	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	14	1'43.8618	0.9793	0.0020	139.131
15	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	14	1'43.9225	1.0400	0.0607	139.050
16	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	11	1'43.9420	1.0595	0.0195	139.024
17	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	15	1'43.9487	1.0662	0.0067	139.015
18	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	14	1'44.0237	1.1412	0.0750	138.914
19	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	14	1'44.0992	1.2167	0.0755	138.814
20	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	14	1'44.1131	1.2306	0.0139	138.795
21	Max Chilton	Carlin	14	1'44.2225	1.3400	0.1094	138.650
22	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing with Arrow SPM	13	1'44.6487	1.7662	0.4262	138.085
23	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	13	1'44.7119	1.8294	0.0632	138.002
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