With less than two weeks to go before the start of competition at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix, all of the IndyCar teams have gathered at the Sebring short circuit to carry out two test days, these being the most significant in a preseason that has once again lacked an official test. The busiest day was Monday, in which eight of the ten teams, and 17 of the 26 full-time carshave carried out the final fine-tuning of the setups that they will use primarily on urban circuits.
Throughout the day, the Andretti Autosport cars proved to be the most consistent in terms of speed, with two drivers from the team topping the table in the morning and afternoon. At the end of the day, the best time corresponded to Colton Herthaone of the two pilots who managed to lose 52 seconds with a time of 51,851s, after finishing fifth in the morning. In those first hours, the fastest was a Romain Grosjean who left his mark with a 52.0, a time that he barely managed to improve in the afternoon to take third place, his being a declaration of intent for a 2022 season in which great things are expected from the Frenchman.
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In between, displaying a generous use of push-to-pass that not all pilots used to the same extent, a David Malukas that continues to offer very good sensations in preseason. The Dale Coyne Racing rookie, who was already fastest in a test of five rookies at the end of 2021, was left behind. just seven thousandths of leading the table, although said time was well above what he had marked the rest of the day. In fact, he was the only one of seven track rookies to make it into the top 10 finish.
The champion team, Chip Ganassi Racinghad foreseen the participation of its four pilots for this first day, among them the Spanish Alex Palou, but postponed this event for Tuesday in a late change of plans. They were not totally absent, since they took advantage of the situation to use their assigned evaluation test day with an exceptional guest, Kevin Magnussen. The Dane, who competes with the Cadillac Ganassi team at IMSA, thus had his second experience behind the wheel of an IndyCar, after competing last year in the Road America Grand Prix with McLaren SP as a last-minute substitute for the injured Felix. Rosenqvist.
Braking was the big headache for Magnussen in Palou’s car.
In all, Magnussen completed 143 laps, but struggled to extract pace from the car and to adapt his braking to the requirements of the Dallara IR18, staying one second behind Herta and three tenths from the penultimate position occupied by Tatiana Calderón. Still, the former Formula 1 driver, for whom no appearance during the year is ruled out Despite having his sights set on his endurance program with Peugeot in 2023, he expressed himself in positive lines about the test, assuring that “it’s always great to drive an IndyCar, it’s a real beast of a car.”
Penske did meet its scheduled appearance with three cars, and both Josef Newgarden as Will Power rounded out the top 5, with Scott McLaughlin somewhat later. Alexander Rossi was the third fastest man in the morning, but by the end of the day he had dropped to eighth behind Graham Rahal and a Felix Rosenqvist who swelled into laps in the afternoon. At the same time, Pato O’Ward finished second in the morning sessionbut the Mexican did not improve his 52.424 at all by focusing on race pace in the afternoon session, which relegated him to 14th place finish.
One of the great sensations of the test was the quick adaptation of Kyle Kirkwood, which cost him little place in competitive times despite competing with a team like Foyt. Although he finished outside the top 10, and behind Christian Lundgaard, the Indy Lights champion took seventh place on a morning in which he was rubbing shoulders with the times of Andretti’s cars in the long run. This Tuesday he will have a second attempt, this time with all his teammates to complete the trio of pilots with Dalton Kellett.
In addition to the presence of the four Ganassi and the Foyt cars, the Juncos unit and the Coyne team will also repeat, where takuma sato will accompany Malukas in his first test at the wheel of the #51. In turn, the only two teams that were not on Monday will complete the list of 14 participants, with the presence of Simon Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves for Meyer Shank Racing, as well as that of Rinus Vee Kay and Conor Daly for Ed Carpenter Racing.
RESULTS OF THE FIRST DAY OF TEST IN SEBRING
(R): IndyCar Rookies (three races or less)