Experience is a degree, or at least not having a lack of it, but it does not always count everything. Despite visiting several tracks where he did not have the opportunity to compete in 2020, Alex Palou He has not accused this lack of experience, as shown by his leadership in the general classification. Just for this weekend, the tables turn for him, on a route like the Indianapolis GP in which he has already competed four times, and in which he seeks to take his fifth chance (in just over 13 months) with a win for which he seems well positioned.
At the controls of # 10 of Chip Ganassi Racing, Palou recorded the best time in the only free practice session (not counting the warm-up on Saturday) of the Brickyard Grand Prix, in the same way that he did last year in this same round when he was driving for Dale Coyne. The Spanish rider took advantage of his first run of the day on the soft tire, eight minutes from the end, to set a better time of 1: 10,883, on a rather slow day compared to the May Indianapolis GP where times were a second faster in all sessions due to higher temperatures.
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On the horizon the chance to get his first official pole position in IndyCar, given that his first position on the grid in the first Texas race does not count, as it was awarded to him for leading the general classification and not being able to dispute the classification due to rain. In fact, Palou has never ranked in the top two. The Spanish managed to overcome by only 22 thousandths the winner of that event, Rinus VeeKay, who also did his homework early and was the fastest on the tough for much of the session. With just one hour of training, Most of the 28 registered riders opted to complete a couple of runs on the hard tire before taking the pulse of the soft in the final moments.
Many of them were hurt by the red flag caused shortly after Palou’s time by Colton Herta, who stood still at the exit of the pits with clutch and oil pressure problems. For this reason, a crowd of drivers had to take advantage of the final minutes to achieve, in the best of cases, two laps on the soft before qualifying this morning (01:00). Those who knew best how to take advantage of it were Pato O’Ward and Jack Harvey, the only ones in this group to drop below 1:11, while Penske’s power emerged just behind with Josef Newgarden (who will have a six-place penalty for his fourth engine change) and Will power.
However, he would be the seventh ranked, Christian Lundgaard, the great protagonist and surprising element of these books, and whom the aforementioned lack of experience seemed to affect little or nothing. Facing his first official session as an IndyCar driver in Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s third car, the 20-year-old Dane quickly moved into competitive times, being sixth fastest on the hard tire. His best time was a 1: 11.141, just over two tenths behind Palou, and just ahead of team leader Graham Rahal. A whole declaration of intent for a classification where taking advantage of the soft at the right time is the key to good weather, and where you must use the ‘European’ nature of the track to your advantage.
Nashville victor, Marcus ‘the Flying Swede’ Ericsson, and Ryan Hunter-Reay rounded out the top 10 of an intense and highly competitive session, where only Cody Ware was left off the hook for times, where Scott Dixon could only be 15th despite having a free track, and where the first 24 were in less than a second with the hard, and the first 21 with the soft. The first off that list is a RC Enerson which, still in 22nd position, posted much better times than expected for Top Gun Racing’s competitive debut on the track. A lot of cloth to cut in a qualifying session that will look more like a highway at rush hour, and where Palou will finally look for the only statistic that he has not yet completed.