Just when it looked like Meyer Shank Racing and Jack Harvey were set to end practice at Road America at the top of the timing sheets, Team Penske’s Will Power ‘powered’ in a lap good enough to topple the Brit.
It was a session that saw very little between the drivers despite being the longest lap on the NTT Indycar Series calendar with eighteen drivers within a second of Power’s best time.
Behind Power and Harvey came Penske’s Josef Newgarden who needs a good result to keep his championship hopes alive. Felix Rosenqvist was fourth and the leading Chip Ganassi Racing driver, with the Swede also very fast in the primary black tyres before switching to the alternate reds.
Ryan Hunter-Reay was the lead Andretti Autosport car in fifth ahead of Spaniard Alex Palou of Dale Coyne Racing and young hotshot Colton Herta. Graham Rahal, a podium finisher at Indianapolis last weekend, was well down the order for much of the session before putting in a lap good enough for eighth.
Alexander Rossi is desperate for a superb weekend after rotten luck in the opening two rounds of the season and he started his weekend well in ninth ahead of Patricio O’Ward, who rounded out the top ten ahead of Marcus Ericsson and Marco Andretti.
The most notable absentees of the top ten were championship leader and so far unbeaten in 2020 Scott Dixon, who could only manage fifteenth, and Power’s team-mate Simon Pagenaud who was only nineteenth.
