IndyCar St. Pete: Herta tops first practice, McLaughlin stars

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist was the first driver to duck into the 61sec bracket, turning a 1min01.8248sec lap of the 1.8-mile street and runway course, an average speed of 104.812mph.

Then with 25mins remaining, eight-time St. Pete polesitter Will Power of Team Penske-Chevrolet joined him in that bracket and next time by eclipsed him with a 61.6276.

Soon after, Takuma Sato of Rahal Letterman Lanigan, rookie Alex Palou of Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh, and Sebastien Bourdais of AJ Foyt Racing were also in that 61sec zone.

After outbraking himself at Turn 3, Bourdais channeled his frustration into brilliance and sprung to P2. Then Marcus Ericsson of Ganassi headed into the Top 3.

But the next star of the show was Scott McLaughlin, in his IndyCar debut, strapping on fresh primaries and all-but matching teammate Power’s P1 time.

The three-time Supercars champion – confirmed yesterday as an IndyCar full-timer in 2021 – made a couple of errors on his first flyer on alternates but appeared to be getting it right on his third until running into Turn 10 runoff.

However, the session had already been red-flagged with five minutes to go, as Rosenqvist spun and stalled heading into the final turn.

Meanwhile, James Hinchcliffe and then Andretti Autosport teammate Herta had moved the benchmark to 61.2279 and 61.1306sec respectively.

The session restarted with just 2m30sec remaining, but then Oliver Askew – returning to the #7 Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet after a one-event absence – skated straight on at the final turn and nosed into the tire barrier, while McLaughlin made a similar error without contact, and so the session ended under red.

Palou grabbed third ahead of Sato and Bourdais, while Alexander Rossi was sixth but needed his toe-link replaced after tagging a wall.

Other drivers made wall contact, including Ganassi's championship leader Scott Dixon ,who reported that the Firestone alternate tires go through a lull before offering their ultimate grip. He finished the session in 16^th, just behind his teammates, but said the car was plenty fast enough and that his best lap had been ruined by a red flag.

The only man who can prevent Dixon taking the title, Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, finished the session in eighth, just ahead of Power and McLaughlin, and just behind Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay, who will claim IndyCar Rookie of the Year honors when he starts the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg tomorrow.

Qualifying begins at 3.05pm local (Eastern) time and reverts back to the normal IndyCar method of knockout qualifying. With one second covering the top 21 cars, it promises to be very tight.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Colton Herta	Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Autosport	33	1'01.130		106.003
2	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport	37	1'01.227	0.097	105.834
3	Alex Palou	Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh	44	1'01.431	0.301	105.483
4	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	33	1'01.482	0.351	105.396
5	Sébastien Bourdais	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	41	1'01.515	0.384	105.340
6	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	31	1'01.578	0.447	105.232
7	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	44	1'01.612	0.482	105.173
8	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	36	1'01.620	0.489	105.161
9	Will Power	Team Penske	38	1'01.627	0.497	105.148
10	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	45	1'01.677	0.546	105.063
11	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan	39	1'01.695	0.564	105.032
12	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	34	1'01.707	0.577	105.011
13	Oliver Askew	Arrow McLaren SP	36	1'01.722	0.591	104.987
14	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	45	1'01.727	0.596	104.978
15	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	42	1'01.729	0.598	104.975
16	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	36	1'01.845	0.715	104.777
17	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	32	1'01.872	0.741	104.732
18	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	35	1'01.876	0.745	104.725
19	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	36	1'01.921	0.791	104.648
20	Marco Andretti	Andretti Herta Autosport with Marco & Curb-Agajani	31	1'01.993	0.862	104.528
21	Charlie Kimball	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	37	1'02.125	0.994	104.305
22	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	32	1'02.168	1.038	104.232
23	Max Chilton	Carlin	35	1'02.215	1.085	104.153
24	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	40	1'02.326	1.196	103.968
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