Matt Fraver/Penske Entertainment
Daly tops seven-car IndyCar test at Iowa
Conor Daly led the seven-car private NTT IndyCar Series test at the Iowa oval on Thursday. With the three-car Ed Carpenter Racing team and the four drivers from Andretti Autosport in attendance, nearly 2000 laps were turned on the 0.875-mile oval where Daly’s best unofficial tour came on lap 87 from the 236 he produced in the No. 20 Chevy. He was followed by Andretti’s Colton Herta, whose best came later in the day on lap 217 of 262. Teammate Alexander Rossi was third.
“We all just tried to get running as soon as possible,” Daly told RACER. “There was literally a 100-percent chance of rain, so everyone was thinking to get after it right away because we probably were not going to do much once it began to rain, but there wasn’t a drop all day.
“Our best lap come from an early run, which was still good enough to hold for the rest of the day. The track’s still really hard to get around and we're going to need people to get up in the middle lanes. They're definitely going to have to rubber in a wider line to get some good racing going.”
Herta was pleased with findings that came from his No. 26 Honda.
“Right away we got on pace and I did an 18.7s run, the car felt really good, and then we focused more on long runs and dialing the car in,” he said. “It didn’t come together until the end of the day with an 18.3s, so we were still off on Conor on quali pace, but our race pace was good.”
The test comes after the recent 14-car outing at Iowa where Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden led the group -- albeit in much hotter conditions -- with a lap of 18.377s. The Iowa doubleheader is set to run across July 22-24, with the Friday portion of the event having been announced as free to all fans and families.
https://twitter.com/INDYCARatIowa/status/1545041527868735488?s=20&t=Rb7f02T4RFL8gHBA7yOQEA
All times unofficial
1: Conor Daly, 18.249s
2: Colton Herta, 18.371s
3: Alexander Rossi, 18.395s
4: Ed Carpenter, 18.412s
5: Romain Grosjean, 18.434s
6: Rinus VeeKay, 18.499s
7: Devlin DeFrancesco, 18.577s
Marshall Pruett
The 2026 season marks Marshall Pruett's 40th year working in the sport. In his role today for RACER, Pruett covers open-wheel and sports car racing as a writer, reporter, photographer, and filmmaker. In his previous career, he served as a mechanic, engineer, and team manager in a variety of series, including IndyCar, IMSA, and World Challenge.
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