Newgarden tops opening IndyCar practice at COTA

Josef Newgarden

Josef Newgarden turned the quickest lap in opening practice for the IndyCar Classic at the Circuit of the Americas in his Penske Chevy. Newgarden's lap of 1m48.657s topped rookie sensation Colton Herta who was 2nd quick in the Harding Steinbrenner Honda by 0.1372s.

However, Herta was the latest driver to lose a Honda engine, bringing out a lengthy red flag as the HPD squad scrambles to figure out the problem.

Alexander Rossi was third quick at 1m49.046s in his Andretti Honda and Ryan Hunter-Reay and Graham Rahal rounded out the top-5.

Honda drivers were 2nd thru 6th so they have the speed, but if their engine keep popping that is going to be a real concern for the Honda teams.

Practice 1 Results

Pos	No	Name	FTime	Diff	Gap	FSpeed	Engine	Tire	Team
1	2	Josef Newgarden	1:48.657	–.—-	–.—-	112.980	Chevy	P	Team Penske
2	88	Colton Herta	1:48.794	0.1372	0.1372	112.837	Honda	P	Harding Steinbrenner Racing
3	27	Alexander Rossi	1:49.046	0.3889	0.2517	112.577	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport
4	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	1:49.501	0.8444	0.4555	112.108	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport
5	15	Graham Rahal	1:49.508	0.8509	0.0065	112.102	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
6	10	Felix Rosenqvist	1:49.685	1.0279	0.1770	111.921	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
7	22	Simon Pagenaud	1:49.720	1.0637	0.0358	111.884	Chevy	P	Team Penske
8	12	Will Power	1:49.738	1.0813	0.0176	111.866	Chevy	P	Team Penske
9	9	Scott Dixon	1:49.854	1.1975	0.1162	111.748	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
10	59	Max Chilton	1:50.019	1.3620	0.1645	111.581	Chevy	P	Carlin
11	7	Marcus Ericsson	1:50.067	1.4100	0.0480	111.532	Honda	P	Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsport
12	5	James Hinchcliffe	1:50.201	1.5438	0.1338	111.397	Honda	P	Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
13	4	Matheus Leist	1:50.235	1.5779	0.0341	111.362	Chevy	P	AJ Foyt Enterprises
14	21	Spencer Pigot	1:50.305	1.6479	0.0700	111.292	Chevy	P	Ed Carpenter Racing
15	19	Santino Ferrucci	1:50.399	1.7419	0.0940	111.197	Honda	P	Dale Coyne Racing
16	31	Patricio O'Ward	1:50.490	1.8329	0.0910	111.105	Chevy	P	Carlin
17	98	Marco Andretti	1:50.548	1.8910	0.0581	111.047	Honda	P	Andretti Herta Autosport with CA
18	26	Zach Veach	1:50.910	2.2529	0.3619	110.685	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport
19	30	Takuma Sato	1:51.091	2.4341	0.1812	110.504	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
20	18	Sebastien Bourdais	1:51.320	2.6635	0.2294	110.276	Honda	P	Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sully
21	60	Jack Harvey	1:51.513	2.8563	0.1928	110.086	Honda	P	Meyer Shank Racing with Arrow SPM
22	14	Tony Kanaan	1:51.733	3.0759	0.2196	109.869	Chevy	P	AJ Foyt Enterprises
23	32	Kyle Kaiser	1:51.796	3.1388	0.0629	109.808	Chevy	P	Juncos Racing
24	20	Ed Jones	1:52.630	3.9734	0.8346	108.994	Chevy	P	Ed Carpenter Racing