Road America IndyCar: Palou tops Newgarden in final practice

As in FP2 and Qualifying, rain threatened to interrupt IndyCar’s final session before tomorrow’s race, but in fact it largely held off until the final five minutes, and the teams and drivers were able to set 1min46sec laps on their primaries.

Third-fastest qualifier Alex Palou turned the top time in this ‘race warm-up’ session with a 1min46.2291sec lap, his Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda three tenths faster than Josef Newgarden in the #2 Team Penske-Chevrolet which is due to start on the outside of the front row.

Simon Pagenaud was third for Meyer Shank Racing-Honda ahead of Dale Coyne Racing with RWR-Honda’s regularly impressive rookie David Malukas. Felix Rosenqvist and Pato O’Ward were fifth and eighth for Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet, split by Andretti Autosport teammates Romain Grosjean and pole-winner Alexander Rossi.

Tatiana Calderon’s AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet came to a halt at Turn 5, bringing out a red flag, and then in the final five minutes the rain started to get heavier and the cars pitted.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	11	1'46.2291		136.031
2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	9	1'46.5337	0.3046	135.642
3	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	12	1'46.5752	0.3461	135.589
4	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD	10	1'46.7581	0.5290	135.356
5	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	10	1'47.0441	0.8150	134.995
6	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	9	1'47.0650	0.8359	134.968
7	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	10	1'47.2270	0.9979	134.765
8	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	13	1'47.3212	1.0921	134.646
9	Will Power	Team Penske	12	1'47.4346	1.2055	134.504
10	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	9	1'47.4798	1.2507	134.448
11	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	10	1'47.5866	1.3575	134.314
12	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	10	1'47.5907	1.3616	134.309
13	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	11	1'47.5956	1.3665	134.303
14	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	9	1'47.6045	1.3754	134.292
15	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	9	1'47.6285	1.3994	134.262
16	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	9	1'47.6584	1.4293	134.225
17	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	13	1'47.7094	1.4803	134.161
18	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	10	1'48.0060	1.7769	133.793
19	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing	11	1'48.0915	1.8624	133.687
20	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	9	1'48.2432	2.0141	133.499
21	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	12	1'48.2747	2.0456	133.461
22	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	11	1'48.4751	2.2460	133.214
23	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	12	1'48.8560	2.6269	132.748
24	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	11	1'49.3557	3.1266	132.141
25	Tatiana Calderon	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	9	1'49.4302	3.2011	132.051
26	Simona de Silvestro	Paretta Autosport	13	1'50.3133	4.0842	130.994
27	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	9	1'51.1885	4.9594	129.963
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