In the first practice session of the 2022 IndyCar season, Romain Grosjean rocketed to the top of the timesheets at St. Petersburg, ahead of Colton Herta and Will Power.
Grosjean switched teams in the offseason, and now drives for Andretti Autosport in the #28 entry that sports the recognizable yellow and red DHL livery.
The fast Frenchman was over a tenth of a second ahead of his nearest competitor, who also happens to the be part of the Andretti stable.
Both Herta and Power have proven over the years to be very fast around the seaside street circuit, and it is no easy feat to top them both in the opening session.
Simon Pagenaud and Graham Rahal finished fourth and fifth respectively, with both hoping to start their seasons off with a top result.
David Malukas was the top-running rookie, finishing tenth on the charts in his Dale Coyne Racing entry. Overall, he was only one-third of a second off of Grosjean’s best time.
The only red flag of the session came near the end of the allotted 45 minutes of time, with Jimmie Johnson outbraking himself into one of the many hard braking zones of the 1.8-mile course.
No damage was done to the #48 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, and the only penalty applied was a loss of five minutes of running in tomorrow’s practice session.
Johnson finished 24th out of 26 drivers, with only Christian Lundgaard and Tatiana Calderon logging slower lap times.
There is a lot of time left to find extra pace, however, as the race returns to a full complement of running across the three-day weekend. Practice two begins Saturday at 9:00AM Eastern Time.
