Palou tops opening practice session for Indy GP

The Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course got off to a cool and clean start on Friday morning. It also got off to a familiar start, as Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou, the winner of the last three Indy GPs, was comfortably fastest.

“It was a good start,” Palou said after producing a lap of 1m10.0904s in the No. 10 Honda. “We’re trying a couple (things).”

Graham Rahal was second-fastest in the No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda (1m10.1979s) ahead of Kyle Kirkwood in the No. 27 Andretti Global Honda (1m10.2146s), Felix Rosenqvist in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda (1m10.2161s), David Malukas in the No. 12 Team Penske Chevy (1m10.3773s), and Ganassi’s Kyffin Simpson in the No. 8 Honda (1m10.4194s) in a session that was relatively unremarkable.

The key takeaway was in the lap time difference between Firestone’s harder primary compound and the softer and faster alternate compound, as Palou’s best on the speedier tire was only 0.1792s quicker than the prime, but also appeared to offer greater longevity. That mirrors what was shown at Barber Motorsports Park, site of the only other road course event held so far this year.

During the 40-minute opening segment of practice where all cars made use of the track, Andretti Global demonstrated encouraging pace as Ericsson led the 25 drivers for a decent period and had teammate Kirkwood join him at the front of the field.

But Palou made another statement by clearing Kirkwood by a massive amount – 0.3778s – with a lap of 1m10.2696s on Firestone’s primes to lead the group as the outing moved into 12-minute split sessions to close the morning with qualifying simulation runs on Firestone’s alternates.

In the first half-field run, it was Palou once again who topped the group with a 1m10.0904s lap to lead Rahal (1m10.1979s) and Malukas (1m10.3773s).

In the second group, Kirkwood scaled to the top of his segment with a 1m10.2146s lap to lead Rosenqvist (1m10.2161s) and Ericsson (1m10.5285s).

UP NEXT: FP2, 1:05pm ET