Palou, winner in Detroit last year, propelled his #10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda to a flying lap of 1m01.7210s on the softer alternate tyres to set the pace in the session. The quick lap came during first group and rookies segment, which came in the 15 minutes after the all cars portion.
“It was busy,” Palou said. “I went to visit the runoff areas a couple of times here and there; just trying to find the limit and the grip of the track.
“[The] track is grippier; grippier than last year. I think we were only like two seconds faster than when we did practice one last year. Pretty happy. The car feels good so far.
“Obviously, we have still half of a grid to run those alternates but yeah, pretty happy.”
Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, fresh off a heartbreaking runner-up in the Indianapolis 500 last weekend, ended up second overall on the timesheets – first in the split cars second group – at 0.0105s behind Palou’s leading effort.
Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood managed to make a late jump in the first group to vault to third overall at only 0.0893s behind.
Kirkwood’s team-mate Colton Herta never switched off the harder compound from the all cars segment but had enough pace to end up fourth overall.
Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was fifth, ahead of team-mate and recently crowned two-time Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden in sixth.
Colton Herta, Andretti Global w/ Curb-Agajanian Honda
Photo by: Geoffrey M. Miller / Motorsport Images
Santino Ferrucci ended seventh in the #14 AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet, with Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong in eighth. Team Penske’s Will Power was ninth, with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Christian Lundgaard taking the final spot of the top 10.
One of the two red flags came out with six minutes left in the first group of the split cars session, after Ed Carpenter Racing rookie Christian Rasmussen stalled off course while running ahead of Palou. He was handed a five-minute time penalty as a result.
The second was with the biggest, and only, shunt, which happened in the second group and rookies portion of the split cars segment, with Dale Coyne Racing’s Jack Harvey making contact with the inside wall of Turn 7 and pounded the outside wall at the corner’s exit. The damage was severe as the right-front was destroyed and he was forced to step out of the car. He was running 26th out of 27 cars at the time of the incident.
When the opening 45 minutes ‘all cars’ segment began, it was Christian Lundgaard setting the early pace and holding it for the initial 16 minutes. The Dane rolled around the 1.645-mile, nine-turn temporary street circuit in the heart of Motor City with a stout lap of 1m03.6125s on the harder primary compound.
However, it wasn’t long before Herta jumped to the top with a run of 1m03.0957s as the running order or the top five became a revolving door.
Palou responded with a 1m02.7778s lap, but only temporarily as Herta responded with a 1m02.0219s to return back to the top spot at the 20-minute mark. He held the time for the rest of the segment that was solely run on the harder primary tyre compound.
Power did go to second with a lap of 1m02.4474s, which was 0.4255s off the mark set by Herta.
There were multiple drivers that went off, with Turn 8 causing trouble for the likes of Dixon, Kirkwood, Lundgaard, O’Ward, Palou and Alexander Rossi.
During a stack up near the end of the segment, Kirkwood was tagged in the right-rear by Newgarden going into Turn 6. There was slight cosmetic damage to the front wing of Newgarden, but both continued without issue.
IndyCar Detroit GP – FP1 results
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