After nine years away from the historic racing circuit, the NTT IndyCar Series stormed into The Milwaukee Mile on Friday.
The first order of business was the weekend’s only practice session to allow all 27 drivers a chance to get a feel for the nearly-flat 1.015-mile oval.
Unsurprisingly, Josef Newgarden ended the day on the top of the time sheets. The oval master completed a lap in 23.0156 seconds, averaging 158.762 MPH.
Newgarden completed 78 laps over the course of the 90-minute session, which was one of the highest totals of the field.
Scott Dixon set the second fastest time, and was only 0.099 seconds slower that the man at the top.
Pato O’Ward rounded out the top three, and was followed closely by Felix Rosenqvist and Scott McLaughlin.
Early in the session, McLaughlin looked like he was going to be the fastest driver of the day, but he slipped down to fifth as others built up their speeds.
The two championship contenders were slightly down the order, with Alex Palou setting the ninth best time and Will Power setting the 11th best lap.
Katherine Legge was the slowest driver on course, never getting her Dale Coyne Racing #51 within a second of the cars at the top of the field.
Before the main practice session, there was an extra 30 minutes given to drivers to run the low line around the corners.
The dedicated session allowed drivers to put a layer of rubber down on the less preferred line, which will hopefully allow more side by side racing later in the weekend.
Similar sessions have been granted at oval races over the past couple seasons to help make for a better race, the difference is just that at Milwaukee the lowest racing line is the one that needed the extra attention.
The drivers nearly made it through the entire session with no incidents, but with only seven minutes remaining rookie Christian Rasmussen drifted high and hit the outside wall, breaking his suspension.
Up until this weekend, Rasmussen’s only oval experience in IndyCar had been the Indianapolis 500 in May.
His team owner Ed Carpenter decided to step aside for the final races of the season to both give his rookie a chance to learn the ovals and to help the entry stay above the cut line in the Leader’s Circle standings.
A couple other times there were close calls, including when Pato O’Ward fought off a loose race car through the use of his famously fast hands on the steering wheel.
Next time drivers are on track will be for qualifying, which will set the grid for both races of the weekend.
