Kirkwood starts fast in Nashville IndyCar practice

Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood set the benchmark in Saturday’s opening NTT IndyCar Series practice session at Nashville Superspeedway.

Kirkwood’s 197.097mph best came on just his third lap, and remained unbeaten on a morning defined mostly by field-wide struggles to find a comfortable balance with the cars’ handling.

This was apparent in the opening laps when Kirkwood’s teammate Marcus Ericsson had a huge moment in the chute between Turns 3 and 4 that required some fast hands to keep the No. 28 Honda off the wall.

A short time later, David Malukas drove the point home even more emphatically when his No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet stepped out in Turn 2 and snapped backwards into the wall. Malukas, who along with Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard is coming into the weekend with a nine-place grid penalty for an unapproved engine change, played no further part in the session, but his 196.340mph best remained second-fastest until the closing minutes.

Ten minutes was added to the running time to compensate for the time lost cleaning up after Malukas’s accident.

Championship leader Alex Palou was the driver who did finally pip Malukas’s time, rattling off a 196.966mph best in Chip Ganassi Racing’s No. 10 Honda, while fellow late improvers Felix Rosenqvist (No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda) and Santino Ferrucci (No. 14 AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet) rounded out the top five.

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