Herta tops final IndyCar practice at Texas

Rookie Colton Herta soared to the top of the timesheets in final practice for the NTT IndyCar Series at Texas Motor Speedway.

The 19-year-old California native charged into a favorable tow to put down a flying lap at 222.451 mph despite track temperatures exceeding 120 degrees around the 1.5-mile superspeedway.

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“It was good,” said Herta, driver of the No. 88 Harding Steinbrenner Racing Honda. “The car has been really good pretty much the whole time in traffic and stuff. Then in qualifying simulations it seems good as well.

“I don’t really have much to complain about. The car has been good the whole time. In dirty air, out of dirty air, we seem quick. Obviously, that was a big tow lap because we went quite a bit faster than everyone.”

Honda was represented among the top three as Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Takuma Sato backed up his runner-up run from Thursday night’s rain-shortened practice to slot in just behind Herta. Alexander Rossi led the charge for the Andretti Autosport camp with his third-place effort.

After completing a session-best 106 laps, Will Power was fastest for Chevrolet and Team Penske in fourth, while rookie Marcus Ericsson was the last driver to eclipse the 220mph barrier in fifth.

Power’s teammate, Josef Newgarden, placed ninth in the session as the only other Chevrolet represented in the top 12.

Defending race winner Scott Dixon, who led opening practice, was best of the rest in sixth with a lap of 219.976 mph in the No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.

The daytime conditions tested the new right side tire compounds brought in by Firestone. With exactly 2400 laps logged in the afternoon, several teams endured some light blistering, but nothing largely considered out of the ordinary.

Qualifying for the DXC Technology 600 is set to begin Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN.

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