{"id":58964,"date":"2021-07-02T19:03:36","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T19:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wordpress_X\/index.php\/2021\/07\/02\/newgarden-speeds-to-top-of-friday-practice-at-mid-ohio\/"},"modified":"2021-07-02T19:03:36","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T19:03:36","slug":"newgarden-speeds-to-top-of-friday-practice-at-mid-ohio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/newgarden-speeds-to-top-of-friday-practice-at-mid-ohio\/","title":{"rendered":"Newgarden Speeds to Top of Friday Practice at Mid-Ohio"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s one thing clear with Josef Newgarden as he and Team Penske search for their first victory this season in the IndyCar Series: Speed is not a problem.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Newgarden led the opening practice for The Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Presented by the HPD Ridgeline on Friday at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The two-time series champion turned a top lap of 1 minute, 7.2524 in the No. 2 XPEL Team Penske Chevrolet, continuing a trend that has seen Newgarden win the P1 Award at the last two series races.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good session,\u201d Newgarden said. \u201cThe thing I noticed right was that the car felt phenomenal. When you get into a car and it feels that good, you\u2019re like, \u2018Man, we got something right here coming into it.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re on the right track. Getting into the reds (alternate Firestone tires) in qualifying is going to be the tricky bit, to keep the balance. You normally put a lot of understeer here on reds. So far, so happy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s action includes practice at 9:05 a.m. ET (live on Peacock), NTT P1 Award qualifying at noon (live on Peacock, 8 p.m. Saturday on NBCSN) and final practice at 3:30 p.m. Expect a tight race for spots on the 26-car starting grid, as less than one second separated the top 18 drivers in practice today.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 80-lap race on the 13-turn, 2.258-mile circuit is set for noon Sunday, live on NBC and the INDYCAR Radio Network.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pato O\u2019Ward was second today on the time sheet with a best lap of 1:07.5050 in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet. Jack Harvey ended up third at 1:07.5840 in the No. 60 AutoNation\/SiriusXM Honda.<\/span><\/p>\n

2018 Mid-Ohio winner Alexander Rossi was fourth at 1:07.7245 in the No. 27 NAPA AUTO PARTS\/AutoNation Honda. 2015 Mid-Ohio winner Graham Rahal rounded out the top five at 1:07.7561 in the No. 15 Fifth Third Bank Honda.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a home race for Harvey and Rahal. Englishman Harvey\u2019s team, Meyer Shank Racing, is based in nearby Pataskala, Ohio, and team co-owner Michael Shank is a native of Columbus. Rahal also is a native of the Columbus area.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe just want a smooth weekend,\u201d Harvey said. \u201cIt\u2019s everyone\u2019s home race at Meyer Shank Racing. Mike has been awesome. There\u2019s no added pressure, but we all want to get a good result for him in the place he grew up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Championship leader Alex Palou ended the session ninth at 1:07.7951 in the No. 10 NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.<\/span><\/p>\n

The practice included one red flag, 25 minutes into the session, when Felix Rosenqvist spun in Turn 1 and stalled in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet. Rosenqvist returned to the series today after missing the REV Group Grand Prix presented by AMR on June 20 at Road America and Race 2 of the Chevrolet Dual in Detroit on June 13 due to a heavy crash in Race 1 at Detroit on June 12.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rosenqvist ended up 13th quickest in the session at 1:08.0265. Another driver returning from an injury hiatus, Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing, was 18th at 1:08.2367 in the No. 21 Sonax\/Autogeek Chevrolet. VeeKay missed the Road America round due to a broken collarbone suffered in a cycling accident.<\/span><\/p>\n

The spin by Rosenqvist wasn\u2019t the only incident of the session. Colton Herta came within inches of the concrete wall between Turns 9 and 10 earlier in the session in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda after going off track and bouncing through the grass.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s one thing clear with Josef Newgarden as he and Team Penske search for their first victory this season in the IndyCar Series: Speed is not a problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-58964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-indycar"},"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}