Rosenqvist fastest in 1st IndyCar practice

Felix Rosenqvist

F2 transplant Felix Rosenqvist made his presence felt immediately on Friday morning here on the streets of St. Petersburg by turning the fastest lap on the still green track as practice began for the Firestone GP of St. Petersburg IndyCar season opener.

Rosenqvist, from Sweden, put up a lap of 1m01.822s to beat American Ryan Hunter-Reay by 1/4-sec as Honda drivers swept the top-6 fastest times. Rosenqvist was the only driver in the 1m01sec bracket.

F1 transplant Marcus Ericsson, also from Sweden was third fastest driving the car Robert Wickens drove to pole here last year (but with a different number) while Scott Dixon and Alexander Rossi rounded out the top-5.

Practice 1 Results

Pos	No	Name	FTime	Diff	Gap	Laps	FSpeed	Engine	Team
1	10	Felix Rosenqvist	1:01.822	–.—-	–.—-	25	104.818	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
2	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	1:02.064	0.2421	0.2421	13	104.409	Honda	Andretti Autosport
3	7	Marcus Ericsson	1:02.081	0.2596	0.0175	23	104.380	Honda	Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsport
4	9	Scott Dixon	1:02.131	0.3094	0.0498	15	104.296	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
5	27	Alexander Rossi	1:02.147	0.3255	0.0161	15	104.269	Honda	Andretti Autosport
6	30	Takuma Sato	1:02.157	0.3356	0.0101	17	104.252	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
7	2	Josef Newgarden	1:02.174	0.3525	0.0169	15	104.224	Chevy	Team Penske
8	15	Graham Rahal	1:02.185	0.3637	0.0112	14	104.205	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
9	26	Zach Veach	1:02.193	0.3710	0.0073	12	104.193	Honda	Andretti Autosport
10	12	Will Power	1:02.276	0.4543	0.0833	17	104.053	Chevy	Team Penske
11	18	Sebastien Bourdais	1:02.288	0.4669	0.0126	13	104.032	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan
12	22	Simon Pagenaud	1:02.309	0.4879	0.0210	15	103.997	Chevy	Team Penske
13	5	James Hinchcliffe	1:02.314	0.4925	0.0046	15	103.989	Honda	Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
14	21	Spencer Pigot	1:02.370	0.5488	0.0563	16	103.896	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
15	23	Charles Kimball	1:02.461	0.6392	0.0904	17	103.745	Chevy	Carlin
16	60	Jack Harvey	1:02.505	0.6832	0.0440	14	103.672	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing with Arrow SPM
17	88	Colton Herta	1:02.509	0.6875	0.0043	21	103.665	Honda	Harding Steinbrenner Racing
18	98	Marco Andretti	1:02.557	0.7351	0.0476	13	103.586	Honda	Andretti Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian
19	14	Tony Kanaan	1:02.614	0.7924	0.0573	14	103.491	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
20	4	Matheus Leist	1:02.663	0.8410	0.0486	16	103.411	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
21	19	Santino Ferrucci	1:02.738	0.9166	0.0756	20	103.287	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing
22	20	Ed Jones	1:02.749	0.9272	0.0106	14	103.269	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
23	59	Max Chilton	1:02.907	1.0850	0.1578	17	103.010	Chevy	Carlin
24	81	Ben Hanley	1:04.934	3.1126	2.0276	14	99.793	Chevy	DragonSpeed