Pato O’Ward took the honors in Friday night’s closing apply session forward of tomorrow’s NTT IndyCar Collection race at WWTR.
O’Ward coated the 1.25 miles at a 174.708mph common within the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, leaving Andretti World’s Marcus Ericsson to accept second-fastest at 174.191mph within the No. 28 Honda.
Ericsson’s Andretti teammate Colton Herta rebounded from his qualifying crash (and a black flag for not high-lining sufficient through the brief Excessive-Line session that instantly preceded apply) to go third-fastest within the repaired No. 26 at 173.698mph. That was simply sufficient to maintain him away from Workforce Penske’s Josef Newgarden (173.685mph), whereas Kyle Kirkwood planted one other flag for Andretti by claiming fifth-fastest with a better of 173.659mph.
For a lot of the area, the night was about making liberal use of the excessive line, which had revealed itself to be gripper than anticipated through the Excessive-Line session, and attempting to work out how the night circumstances would translate to a race that can begin a number of hours earlier within the day.
And for some, it was about making up for misplaced time. That included each of the Dale Coyne Racing automobiles, which rebounded from finishing zero laps between them in qualifying to have a productive night. Jack Harvey, whose qualifying hopes have been squashed by a software program glitch within the No. 18 Honda’s hybrid system, ran 64 laps to complete twenty second quickest, whereas Katherine Legge, whose No. 51 was miles off the tempo in first apply and didn’t take part in qualifying in any respect, bounced again to cowl 59 laps and finish the day in P25.
The session didn’t move with out a few scares, the primary of which concerned Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel, whose No. 6 Chevrolet suffered a sudden right-front tire failure. Mercifully, it occurred whereas he was on a straight and he was capable of return to the pits safely. He was operating third-fastest on the time, and held on for ninth-fastest on the checker.
Then, with just below 5 minutes left on the clock, Conor Daly caught the wall at Flip 2. He, too, was capable of keep away from severe harm and return to the pits underneath his personal energy.
The one different warning was for a monitor inspection with 17 minutes remaining.
UP NEXT: Race, Saturday, 6:15 p.m. ET
