IndyCar Laguna Seca: McLaughlin leads opening practice

Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin paced an opening practice for the Grand Prix of Monterey at Laguna Seca in a Friday afternoon session that featured two red flags for the IndyCar Series.

The New Zealander wasn’t involved near the top of the leaderboard until near the end of the session when he fired off a lap of 1m07.6325s around the 2.238-mile, 11-turn natural terrain road course.

Andretti Global’s Colton Herta, a two-time winner of the event, was second at just 0.0991s off the mark.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou, also a former winner at Laguna Seca, was third at 0.1046s behind McLaughlin’s time. 

Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden was fourth, ahead of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Pietro Fittipaldi. 

“It’s quicker than it feels,” Newgarden said of the two-year-old repaved track surface.  “Does feel like a lot of grip, but the lap time is not that bad compared to last year.

“It’s still really fast compared to the new pavement. You’re keeping a lot of speed. You’re tiptoeing more. Last year, the thing just felt like it was stuck in the track.

“This year, you’re on top of it. It’s a lot more line specific. Some corners you just can’t miss the line otherwise you’ll blow the corner.” 

Newly-signed Meyer Shank Racing driver David Malukas, making his first start of the season, brought out the first red flag just 24 minutes into the session after spinning out and stalling the Honda-powered No. 66 car at the Andretti Hairpin.  

Graham Rahal’s early mark of 1m09.0374s on a set of the harder primary tires that sat at the top of the leaderboard for the majority of the opening 33 minutes was dethroned by Kyle Kirkwood’s flying lap of 1m08.6421s. However, it was Palou that vaulted to the first moments later with a lap of 1m08.5664s. 

Rookie Nolan Siegel, who was announced in a multi-year deal with Arrow McLaren and replaced reigning Formula 2 champion Theo Pourchaire earlier in the week, had a close call roughly 37 minutes into practice as the backend of the No. 6 Chevrolet nearly snapped around at the exit of the Corkscrew. Fortunately, he was able to save it and continue on.

The same couldn’t be said for Siegel’s newfound team-mate Pato O’Ward, who brought out the second red flag 13 minutes later after spinning off in Turn 5 and sliding backwards into the gravel trap. He managed to keep it off the wall, but did stall and needed assistance by the AMR Safety Team to get refired and sent back out. 

Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson swapped to a set of the softer alternate tires and managed to reset the fastest time with a 1m08.237s lap with roughly 17 minutes left in the session. He was followed by team-mate Kirkwood, who delivered a stout lap of 1m08.3524s just seconds later to push Palou down to third. 

Newgarden stormed to the top with just under 14 minutes left after a set of alternates guided his No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet to a best lap of 1m08.1587s. 

The lap times then began to falling with under 10 minutes to go as Herta, on alternates, pounded the pavement with a 1m07.7316s lap, which bettered the improved time by Newgarden of 1m07.8805s. 

Meanwhile, Fittipaldi propelled to third with a lap at 1m08.0025s. 

Palou fired back with a set of alternates of his own, rolling to a lap of 1m07.9588s to jump back to third, dropping Fittipalid to fourth with three minutes remaining. Palou then nailed a 1m07.7371s lap to replace Newgarden. 

McLaughlin managed to jump up to the top of the leaderboard with just over a minute to go, nailing a flyer of 1m07.6325s. 

Main Information Additional Data Driver Info

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Main Information
Cla	Driver	#	Laps	Time	Interval	Mph
1	S. McLaughlin Team Penske	3	21	1'07.6325		119.126
2	C. Herta Andretti Global with Curb-Agajanian	26	16	+0.0991 1'07.7316	0.0991	118.952
3	A. Palou Chip Ganassi Racing	10	23	+0.1046 1'07.7371	0.0055	118.942
4	J. Newgarden Team Penske	2	14	+0.2480 1'07.8805	0.1434	118.691
5	P. Fittipaldi Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	30	33	+0.3700 1'08.0025	0.1220	118.478
6	P. O'Ward Arrow McLaren	5	19	+0.3765 1'08.0090	0.0065	118.467
7	K. Kirkwood Andretti Global	27	17	+0.4129 1'08.0454	0.0364	118.403
8	A. Rossi Arrow McLaren	7	22	+0.4446 1'08.0771	0.0317	118.348
9	M. Armstrong Chip Ganassi Racing	11	25	+0.4494 1'08.0819	0.0048	118.340
10	W. Power Team Penske	12	22	+0.5281 1'08.1606	0.0787	118.203
11	C. Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	45	28	+0.5312 1'08.1637	0.0031	118.198
12	M. Ericsson Andretti Global	28	22	+0.5438 1'08.1763	0.0126	118.176
13	A. Canapino Juncos Hollinger Racing	78	27	+0.5453 1'08.1778	0.0015	118.173
14	C. Rasmussen Ed Carpenter Racing	20	32	+0.6130 1'08.2455	0.0677	118.056
15	R. van Kalmthout Ed Carpenter Racing	21	15	+0.6360 1'08.2685	0.0230	118.016
16	R. Grosjean Juncos Hollinger Racing	77	25	+0.7307 1'08.3632	0.0947	117.853
17	G. Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	15	28	+0.8408 1'08.4733	0.1101	117.663
18	S. Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing	9	24	+0.8476 1'08.4801	0.0068	117.652
19	S. Ferrucci A.J. Foyt Enterprises	14	25	+1.0216 1'08.6541	0.1740	117.354
20	K. Simpson Chip Ganassi Racing	4	35	+1.0218 1'08.6543	0.0002	117.353
21	L. Lundqvist Chip Ganassi Racing	8	33	+1.0747 1'08.7072	0.0529	117.263
22	R. Robb A.J. Foyt Enterprises	41	23	+1.1509 1'08.7834	0.0762	117.133
23	F. Rosenqvist Meyer Shank Racing	60	25	+1.2588 1'08.8913	0.1079	116.949
24	J. Harvey Dale Coyne Racing	18	23	+1.3417 1'08.9742	0.0829	116.809
25	D. Malukas Meyer Shank Racing	66	22	+1.3881 1'09.0206	0.0464	116.730
26	L. Ghiotto Dale Coyne Racing	51	15	+1.9630 1'09.5955	0.5749	115.766
27	N. Siegel Arrow McLaren	6	17	+2.3694 1'10.0019	0.4064	115.094
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