Before the final hour got underway, the field was split in two to practice running the high line, and it went largely incident-free, until Conor Daly had a spin out of Turn 4, thankfully keeping his Ed Carpenter Racing car off the wall. Rookie Benjamin Pedersen in the #55 AJ Foyt Racing machine had to take swift avoiding action, but he did this without problem.
Through the hour that followed, Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren and defending Texas winner Josef Newgarden of Team Penske, appeared the most comfortable at running the high and low line, and seemed able to make their tyres last.
But it was Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing, who will start from the outside of the front row, who snuck in with a 222.378mph lap to shade Newgarden by only 0.0615s, which equates to 0.6mph around the TMS 1.5-mile oval.
Ganassi’s newest recruit, Takuma Sato, also bolted on a set of fresh Firestones to claim third fastest, ahead of Scott McLaughlin of Penske and the fastest Andretti Autosport entrant, Colton Herta.
Defending IndyCar champion Will Power made it three Penskes in the top six, ahead of the impressive Juncos Hollinger Racing entry of Callum Ilott.
Today’s pole-winner Felix Rosenqvist was the fastest Arrow McLaren in eighth, with his team-mates Alexander Rossi and O’Ward in 11th and 13th, while Alex Palou and Marcus Ericsson ensured all four Ganassi cars were in the Top 10.
There were no yellows in the final hour, the rookies Agustin Canapino (Juncos Hollinger), Sting Ray Robb (Dale Coyne Racing with RWR) and Pedersen staying out of trouble and clocking laps good enough for 15th, 17th and 24th respectively. Robb did have one scary moment when he clipped the grass on the dog-leg front ‘straight’ with his left rear, but he held the moment with aplomb.
Helio Castroneves was the only driver of the 28 entered to turn no laps in practice, having also missed the majority of the high-line practice due to a failed bearing.
Weather allowing, tomorrow’s 250-lap PPG 375 starts at 11.15am local (Central) time.
Source: Autosport