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Edition

USA

IMS IndyCar: Ericsson leads Rossi in raceday warm-up

Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda’s Marcus Ericsson maintained the momentum from his Nashville triumph to lead Alexander Rossi in raceday warm-up on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

Marcus Ericsson, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda

Marcus Ericsson, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda

Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

A clear indication that Firestone’s softer alternate compound will be the tire of choice in this afternoon’s Big Machine Spiked Cooler Grand Prix is that almost no one put a lap on them, instead focusing on refining their handling on the harder primaries and on full and half-full tanks.

And Ericsson, who has scored more points than any driver since the Indy 500, topped the times with a 1min11.3705sec effort ahead of Andretti Autosport-Honda’s Alexander Rossi by less than two-hundredths.

Ericsson will only roll off 11th this afternoon but is in far better position than his six-time championship-winning teammate Scott Dixon who spun in qualifying yesterday and starts 26th. After a shaky start to today’s warm-up, where he visited two run-off zones in his first two laps, the Ganassi legend put together a decent run on blacks to go ninth fastest.

Another driver who won’t be starting where his pace indicates he should is Josef Newgarden, who qualified only 14th fastest and will take a six-place grid hit for switching to his fifth Chevrolet engine of the year. However, his latent potential was indicated with a strong run on black primaries today, and he finished the session third, ahead of IMS road course star Jack Harvey of Meyer Shank Racing-Honda.

Max Chilton’s Carlin-Chevrolet was a highly encouraging fifth, while Rahal Letterman Lanigan regulars Takuma Sato and Graham Rahal, who have been overshadowed by their debutant teammate Christian Lundgaard thus far, were sixth and seventh. Lundgaard himself was 18th.

Pole-winner Pato O’Ward turned the most laps – 23 – and finished the session in 23rd.

James Hinchcliffe, Sato, Sebastien Bourdais, were among those who had off-track excursions but without incurring damage.

The race begins at 1.00pm local (Eastern) time on NBCSN.

P

Name

FTime

Diff

FL

Laps

FSpeed

Engine

Tire

Team

1

Marcus Ericsson

1:11.3705

1:11.3705

21

22

123.026

Honda

P

Chip Ganassi Racing

2

Alexander Rossi

1:11.3895

0.0190

12

18

122.993

Honda

P

Andretti Autosport

3

Josef Newgarden

1:11.4639

0.0934

8

22

122.865

Chevy

P

Team Penske

4

Jack Harvey

1:11.4951

0.1246

6

16

122.811

Honda

P

Meyer Shank Racing

5

Max Chilton

1:11.5760

0.2055

15

18

122.672

Chevy

P

Carlin

6

Takuma Sato

1:11.6697

0.2992

14

20

122.512

Honda

P

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

7

Graham Rahal

1:11.6743

0.3038

17

22

122.504

Honda

P

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

8

Conor Daly

1:11.6818

0.3113

7

20

122.491

Chevy

P

Ed Carpenter Racing

9

Scott Dixon

1:11.7051

0.3346

15

18

122.452

Honda

P

Chip Ganassi Racing

10

Romain Grosjean

1:11.7573

0.3868

16

21

122.362

Honda

P

Dale Coyne Racing w/Rick Ware Racing

11

Ryan Hunter-Reay

1:11.9089

0.5384

6

11

122.104

Honda

P

Andretti Autosport

12

Alex Palou

1:11.9822

0.6117

10

15

121.980

Honda

P

Chip Ganassi Racing

13

Scott McLaughlin

1:12.0939

0.7234

16

21

121.791

Chevy

P

Team Penske

14

Dalton Kellett

1:12.0952

0.7247

15

20

121.789

Chevy

A

AJ Foyt Enterprises

15

Helio Castroneves

1:12.1239

0.7534

17

19

121.741

Honda

P

Meyer Shank Racing

16

Colton Herta

1:12.1262

0.7557

6

16

121.737

Honda

P

Andretti Autosport

17

Rinus VeeKay

1:12.1341

0.7636

15

19

121.723

Chevy

P

Ed Carpenter Racing

18

Christian Lundgaard

1:12.1840

0.8135

23

23

121.639

Honda

P

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

19

Ed Jones

1:12.2053

0.8348

7

18

121.603

Honda

A

Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan

20

Simon Pagenaud

1:12.2407

0.8702

16

18

121.544

Chevy

P

Team Penske

21

Sebastien Bourdais

1:12.2719

0.9014

12

22

121.491

Chevy

P

AJ Foyt Enterprises

22

Felix Rosenqvist

1:12.2981

0.9276

5

22

121.447

Chevy

P

Arrow McLaren SP

23

Pato O'Ward

1:12.4092

1.0387

7

23

121.261

Chevy

P

Arrow McLaren SP

24

Will Power

1:12.4183

1.0478

9

20

121.246

Chevy

P

Team Penske

25

Jimmie Johnson

1:12.5416

1.1711

8

20

121.040

Honda

P

Chip Ganassi Racing

26

James Hinchcliffe

1:12.8564

1.4859

13

18

120.517

Honda

P

Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport

27

RC Enerson

1:12.9689

1.5984

7

15

120.331

Chevy

P

Top Gun Racing

28

Cody Ware

1:13.5703

2.1998

6

21

119.347

Honda

P

Dale Coyne Racing w/Rick Ware Racing

 

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