Dixon heads eight-car IndyCar test on IMS road course

Scott Dixon and the Chip Ganassi Racing team led Thursday’s eight-car IndyCar Series test on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. Rain intervened, but most drivers were able to complete plenty of dry running.

Dixon’s No. 9 Honda set the pace with a 1m09.966s lap across his 90 tours of the circuit. Teammate and championship leader Alex Palou was second in the No. 10 Honda (1m10.129s) ahead of Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Conor Daly in the No. 76 Chevy (1m10.180s) and teammate Kyffin Simpson in the No. 8 Honda (1m10.222s). AJ Foyt Racing’s David Malukas in the No. 4 Chevy (1m10.272s) and Santino Ferrucci in the No. 14 Chevy (1m10.388s) completed the top six.

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Dale Coyne Racing’s Jacob Abel was seventh in the No. 51 Honda (1m10.543s), and Juncos Hollinger’s Sting Ray Robb completed the group in the No. 77 Chevy (1m10.595s).

“For the majority of the day we were we were right up there, honestly, very quick, just at the end the last new tire run, we managed not to do properly,” Malukas told RACER. “We were messing with some different hybrid maps, and then for the new tires, we forgot to take it out. So we ended up just being on the wrong map in the end and it was just a lot of (rear-tire) locking.”

Coming off a forgettable race at The Thermal Club on Sunday, Malukas was happy to quickly turn the page in a positive direction at IMS.

“Either way, it was really fast all day, which was really good because at Thermal, we were horrendously slow,” he said. "It was really bad. I think a lot of it, too, from Thermal, was driving that was not great on my side. But we definitely did a 180 today.”