Gateway IndyCar: Rookies star in opening practice

Dale Coyne Racing driver Ferrucci’s 184.804mph / 24.3501sec around the 1.25-mile course was enough to beat Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports' Ericsson by just 0.0366sec.

The Rookie of the Year contenders beat championship protagonists Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda and 2017 Gateway winner Josef Newgarden of Team Penske-Chevrolet.

Perhaps with some bearing on single-car qualifying, however, Dixon was second fastest in the no-tow speeds.

Ferrucci’s Coyne teammate in the AIM Vasser-Sullivan car Sebastien Bourdais was fifth ahead of Andretti Autosport-Honda’s top contender Alexander Rossi. Last year’s winner here, Penske's Will Power was seventh, one of only two Chevrolet cars in the Top 10.

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Hondas of Takuma Sato and Graham Rahal were only eighth and 16th, but were third and first respectively in the no-tow speeds.

Conor Daly and Charlie Kimball in the two Carlin-Chevrolets were 13th- and 19th-fastest, but James Hinchcliffe was a disappointing 22nd in the second Arrow SPM machine – albeit only 0.6330sec off the top spot.

Qualifying starts at 5.15pm local (Central) time.

Session results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Mph
1	19	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	24.3501		184.804
2	7	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	24.3867	0.0366	184.527
3	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	24.3991	0.0490	184.433
4	2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	24.4103	0.0602	184.348
5	18	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	24.4283	0.0782	184.213
6	27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	24.5021	0.1520	183.658
7	12	Will Power	Team Penske	24.5089	0.1588	183.607
8	30	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	24.5107	0.1606	183.593
9	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	24.5664	0.2163	183.177
10	88	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	24.5922	0.2421	182.985
11	10	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	24.6112	0.2611	182.844
12	26	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	24.6209	0.2708	182.772
13	59	Conor Daly	Carlin	24.6211	0.2710	182.770
14	22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	24.6789	0.3288	182.342
15	21	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	24.6899	0.3398	182.261
16	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	24.7077	0.3576	182.129
17	14	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	24.7679	0.4178	181.687
18	4	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	24.7937	0.4436	181.498
19	23	Charlie Kimball	Carlin	24.8318	0.4817	181.219
20	20	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	24.8447	0.4946	181.125
21	98	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	24.9142	0.5641	180.620
22	5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	24.9831	0.6330	180.122
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