The NTT IndyCar Series took to the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida for the first practice session of the new year, and it was Felix Rosenqvist who put in the fastest time of the session.
Rosenqvist is driving for Meyer Shank Racing this season, and wasted no time showing the rest of the field that he is comfortable in his new ride.
The Swede lapped the 1.8-mile course in 1 minute, 0.339 seconds in the final minutes of practice, and was nearly half of a second clear of the competition.
Pato O’Ward was the second fastest driver of the day, putting in his fast time with just 18 laps turned on the course.
Marcus Armstrong was third, just fractionally slower than O’Ward. Will Power and Rinus VeeKay rounded out the top five positions, making for five different teams in the first five positions.
Overall, times were a little faster than last year’s opening practice session, despite multiple changes affecting the performance of the cars.
Lighter gearbox and chassis components have lowered the weight by 25 pounds over last season, but Firestone has brought a harder tire this year.
The tire compound change forced drivers to make more adjustments than the lost weight, with many noting that it now takes three to four laps to get them up to temperature, even when using the softer alternate tire.
A new practice format was trialed, which involved splitting the field into two groups and alternating which times they were allowed to turn laps.
There was an opening 20 minute stint that worked as normal, but then the two groups took turns for 10 minutes at a time through the remainder of the session.
The change allowed drivers to have a better chance of finding clear track in order to run fast laps, and also helped to bring cars past the fans more consistently throughout.
Typically drivers will spend nearly half the session on pit road anyway making adjustments, so splitting the field more evenly across the session appears to have little downsides.
Although there were no damaging wrecks, there were a few red flags due to drivers sliding long into the runoff areas.
Some were able to get their car spun around, but others, such as Chip Ganassi Racing rookie Kyffin Simpson, needed assistance from the track crew to get going again.
Drivers and teams will spend the evening poring over data from today’s running, then will be back on track Saturday morning at 9:30 AM Eastern Time for the second practice of the weekend.
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