INDIANAPOLIS — In a drying session, Pato O’Ward led the opening practice for Saturday’s GMR Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
Overnight rains saturated the 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course that uses part of the oval at IMS and the track dried quickly as temperatures began to rise. O’Ward’s fastest lap was 1 minute, 9.4981 seconds in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet. Second fastest by .0007 seconds was Christian Lundgaard in the No. 45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda. Third was Alex Palou in the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.
The session started on a bad note for defending race winner Colton Herta as a mechanical failure sent the No. 26 Andretti Autosport Honda to the garage area in the first few minutes of the 75 minute session. The crew fixed the car and the Californian made an installation lap in the final moments of the session.
Other drivers had light wall contact, brushing the wall as they set up a wide entry into Turn 1 or Turn 12, but no driver had heavy enough contact to warrant a red flag.
There is an afternoon practice at 1:00 p.m. ET with qualifying three hours later. Both sessions will be streamed live on Peacock.
Practice results:
indycar-results-p1-1
