IndyCar News: Saturday Morning Update from Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix

Today is a much different weather day here at the lovely Barber Motorsports Park where the NTT INDYCAR Series will be practicing and qualifying for tomorrow’s race. The temperatures were in the 80s yesterday and this morning it is 46 degrees with a breeze.  The high today should be in the mid-60s.

Tires are the key to this weekend’s race.  The rule for this race is that each driver has to use one set of black (primary) tires and one set of alternate (red) tires.  This is a change from the street course rules.

Christian Lundgaard talked about his tires after Practice 1 yesterday.  ” We were only fast on the alternates. We weren’t fast on the primaries.  That’s really where the surprise was, the shift from alternates to primaries on the 7 car. Every time I’d come into the box, I’d be like I don’t know where I’m going to find half a second. Put on the alternates and there it was.”

“I think that was more in reference to today. I didn’t feel good on the primes. Balance was decent. Definitely some stuff to work on. I didn’t really see where I was going to find half a second or 7/10ths that we were missing at the time.”

Autoracing1 talked with Scott Dixon about the tires after the first practice session.  The six-time champions stated that the black tires were good but he felt the alternates were going to be faster.

We also heard that when leaving the Arlington race, the high winds caused delays for flights leaving DFW on Sunday night.  The Kiwi decided he needed to get home and took an Uber to Austin, TX to catch a flight home from there.  We asked how much that cost him and he answered “A lot”.   A few hundred dollars but he got home that night.

Schedule for today:

INDY NXT Qualifying                   9:00 am CT

NTT INDYCAR Practice 2        10:05 am CT

INDY NXT Race 1 – 35 laps      12:00 pm CT

INDYCAR Qualifying                     1:35 pm CT

Lucille Dust reporting live from Barber Motorsports Park