St. Pete IndyCar: Herta tops warm-up, more Grosjean drama

Herta, who will start the race from third position, lapped the course in 60.3283sec in his #26 Andretti Autosport-Honda, using a set of alternate tires to set a time some quarter-second faster than Newgarden.

But it was the Penske-Chevrolet driver’s progress that was more notable, as he endured an unconvincing qualifying session – and hadn’t looked strong in practice, either – and will roll off for today’s race from ninth on the grid. The team told NBC that everything from behind the engine has been changed, and Newgarden’s laps suggested the alteration has been successful.

A team that struggled as a whole in practice and qualifying was Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda, but in race setup, they were strong enough to finish this session in third, fifth and seventh with defending champion Alex Palou, six-time champion Scott Dixon and two-time race-winner Marcus Ericsson respectively.

Rookie Callum Ilott gave Juncos Hollinger Racing-Chevrolet a fillip with fourth fastest time, while first-time polesitter Scott McLaughlin was sixth for Penske.

Romain Grosjean had minor incidents with both Simon Pagenaud, who he starts alongside this afternoon, and Pagenaud’s Meyer Shank Racing-Honda teammate Helio Castroneves, who dive-bombed him at Turn 1 and made light contact, before spinning backwards three corners later and causing a red-flag with two minutes to go.

That wasn’t the first red flag of the session. Jimmie Johnson looped around at Turn 10, an incident that also got Rinus VeeKay involved, and the pair sat out the final five minutes of the session.

VeeKay’s Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevy will start fourth this afternoon.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	19	1'00.328		107.412
2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	21	1'00.597	0.268	106.936
3	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	18	1'00.831	0.502	106.524
4	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	21	1'01.093	0.765	106.067
5	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	16	1'01.187	0.859	105.903
6	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	20	1'01.195	0.866	105.891
7	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	17	1'01.206	0.878	105.871
8	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	18	1'01.283	0.955	105.738
9	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	16	1'01.334	1.006	105.650
10	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing	20	1'01.359	1.031	105.607
11	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	17	1'01.479	1.151	105.401
12	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	23	1'01.522	1.194	105.327
13	Will Power	Team Penske	22	1'01.547	1.219	105.284
14	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	20	1'01.572	1.244	105.242
15	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	20	1'01.661	1.333	105.090
16	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD	21	1'01.725	1.396	104.982
17	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	17	1'01.805	1.476	104.846
18	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	17	1'01.964	1.635	104.577
19	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	19	1'01.971	1.642	104.565
20	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	20	1'01.975	1.647	104.558
21	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	18	1'01.988	1.660	104.535
22	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	19	1'02.234	1.905	104.123
23	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	19	1'02.245	1.916	104.105
24	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	17	1'02.531	2.203	103.627
25	Tatiana Calderon	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	19	1'03.319	2.991	102.338
26	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	19	1'03.464	3.136	102.104
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