Palou leads Honda sweep of the top four in opening Detroit IndyCar practice

The two main protagonists for IndyCar street racing supremacy faced off on Friday at the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix as Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou led their respective groups, and when their times were compared, Palou’s No. 10 Honda (1m02.772s) was the tiniest bit faster than Kirkwood’s No. 27 Honda (1m02.791s).

“Good start,” Palou said. “It’s just super tough to get a lap here when everything feels good. Although we looked very good, I think we need to work on the car and try to make it a little bit better because I think there was a ton of people that couldn’t really get a good lap.”

The opening day of activities proved to be a strong one for Honda-powered teams as Palou and Kirkwood were followed by Andretti’s Will Power in the No. 26 Honda (1m02.943s) and Meyer Shank Racing’s Marcus Armstrong in the No. 66 Honda (1m03.174s); Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward was the top performer for Chevrolet in the No. 5 entry (1m03.182s) and Team Penske’s David Malukas completed the top six in the No. 12 Chevy (1m03.211s).

Seventh though ninth featured Chevy-powered cars and the top 10 was sealed by Andretti’s Marcus Ericsson who overcame a leak to start the main 40-minute session that sidelined his No. 28 Honda for a long period.

A number of visits down escape roads and a couple of spins were experienced as Romain Grosjean and Sting Ray Robb lost control of their cars, but no major damage was recorded during the three-stage session. Outside of the top 10, new Indy 500 winner Felix Rosenqvist was 11th for MSR, and Josef Newgarden, who was on crutches after suffering a hard crash at Indy, was 21st for Penske while adjusting to the injury’s impact.

“I’ve made some adjustments in the car to accommodate for the injury and those will take some more practice to dial in a bit better,” Newgarden said. “The crew has done a great job in getting me as comfortable as possible in the car. When the race starts on Sunday, we will be ready to go.”

Practice opened at Detroit and went red soon after as fluid streamed from the back of Ericsson’s Andretti Honda. Between the fluid left on the track and the small puddles that fell beneath his car on pit lane, there was a swift need to clean the track after six minutes had transpired.

The session returned to green with 25 minutes left for the entire field and O’Ward and Kirkwood featured before Power moved to the top (1m02.943s) and stayed there until the checkered flag.

Once the split sessions started, it was Kirkwood who took command (1m02.791s) and cleared the 14 drivers with ease as Rinus VeeKay was closest (1m03.257s) while facing a deficit of nearly a half second as everyone concentrated on using Firestone’s softer alternate compound tires to perform qualifying simulation runs.

Scott McLaughlin (1m03.283s), Ericsson (1m03.368s), O’Ward (1m03.643s) and Power (1m03.702s) completed the top six. Indy 500 winner Felix Rosenqivst was eighth in the group (1m04.268s).

In the second session, it was Palou who climbed to the top (1m02.772s) to lead the group and the day ahead of Armstrong (1m03.174s), Christian Lundgaard (1m03.346s), Malukas (1m03.408s) and the ECR duo of Alexander Rossi (1m03.473s) and Christian Rasmussen (1m03.995s).

UP NEXT: Practice 2, Saturday, 9am ET

RESULTS