Armstrong leads the way in opening IndyCar practice at Road America

Chip Ganassi Racing and its technical affiliate at Meyer Shank Racing were the dominant force on Friday at Road America.

Alex Palou led most of the lone practice session in the No. 10 Honda while working on race tuning, and then it was MSR’s turn to take control as Marcus Armstrong and Felix Rosenqvist shot to first and second to close the outing with their qualifying simulation runs.

Armstrong, who was feeling ill in the No. 66 MSR Honda (1m44.271s) was fastest of the 25 drivers and had Rosenqvist in the No. 60 MSR Honda (1m44.350s) close behind, with Palou up next (1m44.366s) and Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward as the first of the Bowtie contingent in fourth with the No. 5 Chevy (1m33.369s).

Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel was mightily impressive to run fifth in the No. 6 Chevy (1m44.433s) ahead of ace rookie performer Caio Collet, who was sixth for AJ Foyt Racing in the No. 4 Chevy (1m44.465s).

Elsewhere, Mick Schumacher made his strongest opening-day impression during his rookie campaign with Rahal Letterman Lanigan to claim eighth (1m44.786s) and Marcus Ericsson led the Andretti Global team in ninth (1m44.814s) while David Malukas did the same for Team Penske in 12th (1m44.918s).

Among those who were surprised with their running positions, Andretti’s Kyle Kirkwood was 15th and teammate Will Power was 17th. Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was 19th, and RLL’s Graham Rahal was relegated to 22nd.

The 1h15m session was clean until it wound down to 26 minutes left when Sting Ray Robb spun exiting Turn 14 – the final corner – speared across the track, and made moderate contact with the wall. The session was red flagged to remove his No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevy, which suffered minimal damage.

UP NEXT: FP2, Saturday, 11am ET
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