Barber IndyCar: Rosenqvist leads disrupted opening practice

On a track surface still damp, and ambient temperatures only reaching 64degF, the rookies were first to emerge to use the extra set of primary tires they are granted, and Rosenqvist nailed a 119.602mph lap.

That was only 0.0454sec faster than Sebastien Bourdais in the Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan-Honda, with James Hinchcliffe only a further five-hundredths of a second further back in the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda.

Hinch spun his car on the entrance to pitlane, but his was one of the more innocuous of the incidents, as he was able to turn back around and continue down to his pit.

The first red flag flew when Matheus Leist spun exiting Turn 5, clipping the damp curb on the outside and spinning into the barrier at Turn 6. That took eight minutes of track time away, and then his teammate Tony Kanaan needed rescuing when he spun exiting Turn 16 and stalled as the car rolled down the hill.

Finally the session ended early when Spencer Pigot spun at the 17^th and final turn and finished up in the sandtrap.

Scott Dixon was fourth fastest for Ganassi ahead of Ryan Hunter-Reay in the fastest of the Andretti Autosport-Hondas, with Circuit of The Americas winner Colton Herta taking sixth for Harding Steinbrenner Racing-Honda.

Carlin Racing’s Patricio O’Ward was the fastest of the Chevrolet runners, clocking a 69.501sec right at the end of the session, although the Team Penske drivers, headed by Simon Pagenaud, couldn’t quite get a clear lap to set a representative time.

Takuma Sato briefly fell off the road but earned eighth for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda ahead of Alexander Rossi (Andretti).

The second practice, in which the drivers will get a chance to run on a set of Firestone ‘alternate’ compound tires (weather allowing), begins at 2.50pm local (Central) time.

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	10	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	14	1'09.2296			119.602
2	18	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	8	1'09.2750	0.0454	0.0454	119.524
3	5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	7	1'09.3276	0.0980	0.0526	119.433
4	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	8	1'09.4373	0.2077	0.1097	119.244
5	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	9	1'09.4452	0.2156	0.0079	119.231
6	88	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	14	1'09.4987	0.2691	0.0535	119.139
7	31	Patricio O'Ward	Carlin	16	1'09.5007	0.2711	0.0020	119.135
8	30	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	5	1'09.5479	0.3183	0.0472	119.055
9	27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	8	1'09.8022	0.5726	0.2543	118.621
10	22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	7	1'09.8294	0.5998	0.0272	118.575
11	98	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	7	1'09.9137	0.6841	0.0843	118.432
12	12	Will Power	Team Penske	11	1'09.9440	0.7144	0.0303	118.380
13	14	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	6	1'09.9707	0.7411	0.0267	118.335
14	2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	7	1'10.1168	0.8872	0.1461	118.089
15	7	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	14	1'10.1253	0.8957	0.0085	118.074
16	21	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	4	1'10.1428	0.9132	0.0175	118.045
17	59	Max Chilton	Carlin	9	1'10.2630	1.0334	0.1202	117.843
18	60	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	8	1'10.3180	1.0884	0.0550	117.751
19	20	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	7	1'10.6279	1.3983	0.3099	117.234
20	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	8	1'10.7382	1.5086	0.1103	117.051
21	19	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	8	1'10.7595	1.5299	0.0213	117.016
22	26	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	8	1'11.0773	1.8477	0.3178	116.493
23	81	Ben Hanley	DragonSpeed	12	1'11.4122	2.1826	0.3349	115.947
24	4	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1	1'33.6477	24.4181	22.2355	88.416