In Detroit, Alex Palou drove his #10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda car really fast, setting a lap time of 1m01.7210s using special tires to be the fastest in the practice.
He made this fast lap during the first part of the practice when only some cars were on the track. He said, “It was busy. 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.”
Pato O’Ward from Arrow McLaren came second, just a tiny bit behind Palou. Colton Herta from Andretti Global was third, followed by his team-mate Kyle Kirkwood.
Scott McLaughlin from Team Penske was fifth, and Josef Newgarden from the same team was sixth.
Santino Ferrucci ended seventh, and Marcus Armstrong from Chip Ganassi Racing was eighth. Will Power from Team Penske was ninth, and Christian Lundgaard from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing was tenth.
During the practice, there were some incidents. Christian Rasmussen from Ed Carpenter Racing stalled off the track, causing a red flag. Jack Harvey from Dale Coyne Racing crashed his car, but he was okay.
At the beginning of the practice, Christian Lundgaard was the fastest. Then Colton Herta took the lead, followed by Alex Palou. But in the end, Herta was fastest during the first part of practice.
Some drivers went off the track, especially at Turn 8, including Dixon, Kirkwood, Lundgaard, O’Ward, Palou, and Alexander Rossi. Near the end of the practice, Kirkwood was hit by Newgarden, but both continued without big problems.
