IndyCar Barber: Under-fire Newgarden leads opening practice

Josef Newgarden, Team Penske Chevrolet

Two-time IndyCar Series champion and reigning Indianapolis 500 winner Newgarden set the pace with a flying lap of 1m06.7045s in the No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet around the 2.3-mile, 17-turn natural terrain road course.

The session occurred just a few hours after he gave an emotional press conference about his disqualification from the opening round at St. Petersburg.

Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, who led the early portion of the session, concluded the 75-minute session in second at 0.083s behind Newgarden.

Will Power continued to showcase Penske’s prowess to focus forward to wrap up in third, 0.0869. Andretti Global’s Colton Herta collected fourth by session’s end.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Christian Lundgaard finished fifth, ahead of Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Romain Grosjean sixth.

Grosjean had a tense moment with Dale Coyne Racing’s Jack Harvey late in the running, appearing to run him to the grass between Turns 3 and 4, which left Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi to fire through the gap between them while approaching with significantly more pace.

Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing) was seventh, with Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong eighth, Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske) ninth and Marcus Ericsson (Andretti Global) wrapped up the final spot of the top 10 in 10th.

There were multiple red flags in the session, with Newgarden causing the first after spinning wildly off course in Turn 13 at just under 15 minutes into the start of the practice session. He admitted he “wasn’t on his game” and that he lost a set of tyres as a result.

Sophomore driver Agustin Canapino also had an off-track moment roughly 10 minutes later, skating off in Turn 1 after the backend of his No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet snapped around.

While the likes of O’Ward, reigning and two-time series champion Alex Palou, Grosjean, McLaughlin and Ericsson all occupied the top spot, Newgarden’s vault to the top came in the final 15 minutes to secure the spot for good.

There is another 75-minute practice at 12:15pm ET tomorrow before qualifying begins at 3:30pm.