IndyCar: Pagenaud heads Penske 1-2 in first practice at Texas Motor Speedway

Simon Pagenaud used a tow from Jack Hawksworth and Ed Carpenter to spring to the top of the times in a hot first practice session at Texas Motor Speedway. The No. 22 Team Penske-Chevrolet clocked 216.172mph and immediately after, his teammate Will Power used a tow from another teammate, Helio Castroneves, to grab P2, less than 0.05mph behind.

The session was marred by a shunt for Ryan Hunter-Reay’s Andretti Autosport machine, but Honda honor (and Texan pride) was upheld by Takuma Sato in AJ Foyt Racing’s No. 14 entry, grabbing third fastest in the dying seconds, to leapfrog the Chip Ganassi Racing entries of Tony Kanaan and Scott Dixon.

Tristan Vautier continued to impress in the Dale Coyne Racing-Honda No. 19 with eighth fastest while Pippa Mann clocked the most laps in the other DCR entry, with 54. Another series returnee, Ryan Briscoe, subbing for James Hinchcliffe, was 17th fastest on 213.260mph. That put him just a couple of tenths of mph behind Schmidt Peterson Motorsport teammate James Jakes who at one point survived an alarming death-wriggle coming out of Turn 4 in the turbulence of Dixon.

The team most clearly struggling is CFH Racing, with last year’s winner Ed Carpenter and teammate Josef Newgarden being some 5mph off the pace and at the wrong end of the field.

With regards to the new rear wheelpod closure panels (LEFT, Honda's and RIGHT, Chevrolet's) that have been installed and the downforce/to speed ratio, results are still inconclusive, according to IndyCar’s vp of technology Will Phillips. He told RACER: “How the downforce affects the tire degradation is hard to tell in this morning session because the drivers don’t do enough consecutive laps. But… I’m expecting that given the heat here, the tire deg will be fairly high. We’ll know a lot more – and drivers will be able to give us more representative feedback – in this evening’s practice session.”

For the record, track temperature on the front straight was 115degF during this first practice.

Qualifying begins at 3.15pm CT, with grid positions being decided by the average of two flying laps.