Pocono IndyCar: Veach tops delayed opening practice

In a session that saw drivers and teams experimenting with wing extensions and wickers in accordance with IndyCar’s revised superspeedway package, the rookie lapped the tri-oval at 217.393mph. He also set second-fastest no-tow speed 214.233mph.

Last year’s Pocono runner-up Josef Newgarden was 0.0719sec slower, around 0.37mph, and a mere 0.02sec faster than Rossi, in a session that was put on hold for 30mins as track 'weepers' were dealt with.

Sebastien Bourdais was a strong fourth for Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan Honda, ahead of points leader Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing, while Tony Kanaan was sixth overall and second-fastest Chevy for AJ Foyt Racing.

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Hondas were slow at the start of the session, but jumped into the top 10, behind the second Penske of Simon Pagenaud and ahead of Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda and James Hinchcliffe.

Penske’s defending and two-time Pocono winner Will Power was 11^th, while Marco Andretti and Ryan Hunter-Reay in the other two Andretti cars were surprisingly only 14^th and 17^th respectively.

Pietro Fittipaldi’s first official oval session (he tested at Pocono last week) saw him clock 19^th fastest, while Conor Daly’s first oval session with Harding Racing left him propping up the table.

The teams’ efforts to run qualifying simulations may prove pointless, however, since there is very uncertain weather in the area, and qualifying is due to start in 1.30pm local (ET) time.

Pocono, IndyCar FP1

Cla	#	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	26	Zach Veach	32	41.3997			217.393
2	1	Josef Newgarden	34	41.4716	0.0719	0.0719	217.016
3	27	Alexander Rossi	36	41.4924	0.0927	0.0208	216.907
4	18	Sébastien Bourdais	31	41.6851	0.2854	0.1927	215.904
5	9	Scott Dixon	27	41.7287	0.3290	0.0436	215.679
6	14	Tony Kanaan	28	41.7693	0.3696	0.0406	215.469
7	22	Simon Pagenaud	24	41.8049	0.4052	0.0356	215.286
8	30	Takuma Sato	25	41.8255	0.4258	0.0206	215.180
9	15	Graham Rahal	34	41.8725	0.4728	0.0470	214.938
10	5	James Hinchcliffe	29	41.8772	0.4775	0.0047	214.914
11	12	Will Power	30	41.8786	0.4789	0.0014	214.907
12	21	Spencer Pigot	31	42.0129	0.6132	0.1343	214.220
13	6	Robert Wickens	29	42.1182	0.7185	0.1053	213.684
14	98	Marco Andretti	20	42.1305	0.7308	0.0123	213.622
15	23	Charlie Kimball	34	42.1630	0.7633	0.0325	213.457
16	20	Ed Carpenter	31	42.1833	0.7836	0.0203	213.355
17	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	34	42.1964	0.7967	0.0131	213.288
18	4	Matheus Leist	31	42.2833	0.8836	0.0869	212.850
19	19	Pietro Fittipaldi	28	42.3208	0.9211	0.0375	212.661
20	10	Ed Jones	35	42.3843	0.9846	0.0635	212.343
21	59	Max Chilton	38	43.0528	1.6531	0.6685	209.046
22	88	Conor Daly	15	43.6867	2.2870	0.6339	206.012