Almost as if his future joining McLaren SP had returned the competitive fire, alexander rossi It seems in a clear disposition to end sooner rather than later with its drought of victories. Few suspected in 2019 that his dominant victory in Road America It would be the last one for a long time, and this same circuit is where the still Andretti Autosport driver started the weekend with a bang by leading the first free practice sessions.
Using the set of soft tires that the category required to return at the end of the session, Rossi recorded a best time of 1:45,602, three tenths off the best times of 2021 on this track despite the heat and lack of rubber. At the side of him his partner finished Colton Hertha, separated both by a single tenth. Their positions are just the tip of the iceberg of the good sensations offered by the Andretti team; Devlin DeFrancesco finished very satisfied just outside the top 10, and the 14th place time of Romain Grosjean it was actually fourth best on the hard tyres.
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In this first contact with the 6.5 kilometers of Road America, the teams that make up the so-called Big 3 completely dominated, occupying the first nine positions with the hard ones and the eight best with the soft ones. Inside Ganassi, Marcus Ericsson’s competitive ‘honeymoon’ continues to bear fruit as the Swede finished in third position. He accompanied him in the top 5 Álex Palou, who faces his favorite circuit in search of prolonging his full podium finish and even repeating his 2021 victory. For now, ‘The Surgeon’ was comfortable in seeking the limits without losing performance, which is usually a good sign for the rest of the weekend .
In the even positions you could find the Penske cars, with Will Power again as the reference. The Australian, leader of the general after winning last week in Detroit, finished fourth, two places ahead of Scott McLaughlin and four ahead of Josef Newgarden, both separated by Scott Dixon in another of Ganassi’s vehicles. Thus, the ‘best of the rest’, with both compounds, was Simon Pagenaudwhich finished ninth on the day by narrowly beating the McLaren SP cars, among which Pato O’Ward closed the top 10.
In these free training sessions he tested extend session duration to 75 minutes to meet requests for more track time. However, the obligation to return a set of softs and the decision not to give teams an additional set of tires played against this claim. On a track with such long times and where the soft tire doesn’t work well after a few laps, many of the top teams chose not to roll for much of the opening half hour and save his hard tires for later. In essence, just 12 drivers completed laps in the first 25 minutes.
The session recorded only one notable incident after a spin by Hélio Castroneves with 20 minutes to go, which forced the session to stop briefly while the Brazilian’s car was rescued on the grass at Canada Corner. In turn, the return Simona de Silvestro it was affected by a small fire in one of its rear brakes that separated it for a long time. Despite this, the Swiss completed 20 laps in the car that Paretta Autosport lines up with support from Ed Carpenter Racing, and was less than a tenth behind Tatiana Calderón in her particular ‘duel’.
RESULTS OF THE FREE 1 IN ROAD AMERICA
Photos: IndyCar Media