IndyCar Road America: Power leads Harvey, Newgarden in practice

Power lapped the 4.014-mile course in 1min46.002sec, an average speed of 136.322mph, to beat Harvey by 0.1585sec in an incredibly tight 75-minute session that, despite this being by far the longest course on the schedule, saw the top 18 cars covered by just one second.

Power will be well aware, however, that while Harvey – the man who ran him closest for pole position at the GP of Indianapolis – appears to have been his biggest threat again, in fact Newgarden, the 2018 polesitter here, has an ace up his sleeve. The two-time and reigning champion set his best time far earlier in the session, on only his seventh lap, and before the track rubbered in.

Felix Rosenqvist was fourth fastest for Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda, ahead of the top Andretti Autosport entry, that of 2012 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh’s rookie Alex Palou bounced back from a disappointing GP of Indy to run sixth fastest in his first encounter with the magnificent course in Elkhart Lake, WI, and went faster than last year’s polesitter Colton Herta (Andretti) and Graham Rahal in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda.

Alexander Rossi, who dominated this race last year, was ninth, just ahead of Arrow McLaren SP’s pacesetter Patricio O’Ward. 

Although Rossi, Hunter-Reay and Herta all had off-course excursions, there were no session stoppages. 

Qualifying begins at 2.15 local (Central) time.

How to watch all the IndyCar action this weekend.

IndyCar schedule, facts and figures for Road America.

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Interval	Mph
1	Will Power	Team Penske	1'46.002		136.316
2	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	1'46.160	0.158	136.112
3	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'46.191	0.030	136.073
4	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'46.231	0.040	136.021
5	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1'46.251	0.020	135.995
6	Alex Palou	Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh	1'46.254	0.002	135.992
7	Colton Herta	Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Autosport	1'46.294	0.039	135.942
8	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'46.360	0.066	135.857
9	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1'46.373	0.013	135.840
10	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	1'46.386	0.013	135.823
11	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'46.395	0.008	135.812
12	Marco Andretti	Andretti Herta Autosport with Marco & Curb-Agajani	1'46.502	0.106	135.676
13	Oliver Askew	Arrow McLaren SP	1'46.512	0.010	135.662
14	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	1'46.526	0.013	135.645
15	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'46.526	0.000	135.645
16	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan	1'46.634	0.108	135.507
17	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'46.959	0.324	135.096
18	Max Chilton	Carlin	1'47.001	0.042	135.043
19	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	1'47.072	0.071	134.953
20	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'47.079	0.006	134.944
21	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'47.093	0.013	134.927
22	Charlie Kimball	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'47.160	0.067	134.842
23	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'49.081	1.921	132.468
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