Romain Grosjean opened up his tenure with Andretti Autosport by putting the No. 28 DHL Honda at the top of the timesheets of opening practice for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
The 35-year-old Swiss-born Frenchman put down a flying lap at 1minutes,01.0525seconds (106.138mph) around the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street circuit to pace the 45-minute session. His lap bumped teammate Colton Herta, defending winner of the event, who ended up finishing runner-up in the session by 0.1042 of a second.
Will Power came away third in the No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet, followed by a pair of Hondas in Simon Pagenaud (Meyer Shank Racing) and Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
“It was a pretty good first session,” Grosjean said, via Peacock. “It went very easy. There’s still a bit more speed we can get out of the car to be get more to my liking, but as I said, the car was very good, very smooth to drive. And yeah, (I’m) 35, almost 36 years old but loving it.”
Alexander Rossi (Andretti Autosport), Jack Harvey (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing), Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske), Rinus VeeKay (Ed Carpenter Racing) and rookie David Malukas (Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports) completed the rest of the top 10.
The session was pretty straightforward until the red flag came out with less than 10 minutes remaining after Jimmie Johnson overshot and came to a temporary stop in Turn 10. Despite a brief fire to the left front, he was able to continue on and practice resumed a few moments later.
One notable is reigning NTT IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou ended the up 17th in the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, just three spots ahead of teammate and six-time series champion Scott Dixon in 20th.
Results: Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg – Practice 1
| Rank | # | Name | Time | Diff. | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 28 | Romain Grosjean | 61.0525 | 14 | |
| 2 | 26 | Colton Herta | 61.1567 | -0.1042 | 19 |
| 3 | 12 | Will Power | 61.2282 | -0.1757 | 18 |
| 4 | 60 | Simon Pagenaud | 61.3249 | -0.2724 | 18 |
| 5 | 15 | Graham Rahal | 61.3683 | -0.3158 | 13 |
| 6 | 27 | Alexander Rossi | 61.457 | -0.4045 | 17 |
| 7 | 45 | Jack Harvey | 61.4903 | -0.4378 | 16 |
| 8 | 3 | Scott McLaughlin | 61.5354 | -0.4829 | 18 |
| 9 | 21 | Rinus VeeKay | 61.5522 | -0.4997 | 17 |
| 10 | 18 | David Malukas | 61.5889 | -0.5364 | 22 |
| 11 | 06 | Helio Castroneves | 61.6086 | -0.5561 | 18 |
| 12 | 14 | Kyle Kirkwood | 61.6177 | -0.5652 | 22 |
| 13 | 29 | Devlin DeFrancesco | 61.6632 | -0.6107 | 21 |
| 14 | 2 | Josef Newgarden | 61.6903 | -0.6378 | 18 |
| 15 | 8 | Marcus Ericsson | 61.6922 | -0.6397 | 18 |
| 16 | 7 | Felix Rosenqvist | 61.7267 | -0.6742 | 14 |
| 17 | 10 | Alex Palou | 61.7267 | -0.6742 | 17 |
| 18 | 20 | Conor Daly | 61.7462 | -0.6937 | 19 |
| 19 | 51 | Takuma Sato | 61.7617 | -0.7092 | 17 |
| 20 | 9 | Scott Dixon | 61.7747 | -0.7222 | 18 |
| 21 | 5 | Pato O'Ward | 61.8297 | -0.7772 | 14 |
| 22 | 77 | Callum Ilott | 62.1578 | -1.1053 | 23 |
| 23 | 4 | Dalton Kellett | 62.2448 | -1.1923 | 23 |
| 24 | 48 | Jimmie Johnson | 62.4246 | -1.3721 | 13 |
| 25 | 30 | Christian Lundgaard | 62.5246 | -1.4721 | 22 |
| 26 | 11 | Tatiana Calderon | 63.7173 | -2.6648 | 22 |
