Kyle Kirkwood and the Andretti Global team put the dramas from the Indianapolis 500 behind them on Friday as the Floridian shot to first overall in practice for Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix.
Kirkwood delivered a lap of 1m01.751s in the No. 27 Honda, which cleared Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin – also keen to put Indy in the rearview mirror – by 0.279s in the No. 3 Chevy. McLaughlin’s teammate Will Power was third (+0.635s) in the No. 12 Chevy and had a strange on-track sequence with Kirkwood where he drove into the back of the No. 27 Honda and kept his foot in the throttle, which damaged the rear of Kirkwood’s underwing and diffuser and cost him time on pit lane while seeking repairs.
“Everyone’s going slow around here; the tracks not big enough to fit all the cars, and he got frustrated,” a blasé Kirkwood said. “I mean, whatever, I guess. Does it give him the right to push my car through a couple corners and almost caused a wreck? I don’t think so. He was just shoving me along. So I don’t know. I’m not upset. I don’t care. We’re P1, but at the same time, I expect IndyCar to do the right thing with that. I’m sure that they’ll do something. Who knows what? Never seen that before, but good day in the in the 27 Honda. We had damage from that too. So maybe we’re even a little bit faster. So who knows.”
Power laughed at the footage of the incident when it was shown to him by the FOX Sports crew after the session.
“I came around and he slowed up in the middle and made contact,” Power said. “So I thought, ‘Well, I may as well get a gap now’ so I just pushed him past the car in front, just moved him out of the way and got a really nice gap. I was like, ‘Oh, well, I’m already touching him. I may as well just keep pushing him and get myself a gap.’ Got a good gap, and finished the run nicely.”
Penske’s Josef Newgarden was fourth in the No. 2 Chevy (+0.731s), Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard was fifth in the No. 7 Chevy (+0.854s) and Andretti’s Colton Herta closed the top six in the No. 26 Honda (+0.863s). Despite multiple brake lockups, spins, half-spins, and a nose-first meeting with the tire barriers, Friday was relatively clean as far as cars making hard contact with walls and each other.
The first 10 minutes of the 40-minute opening stage of practice were mostly quiet as teams did installation checks – a lap out and directly in to allow mechanics to look over the freshly built cars – and only Nolan Siegel and Kyffin Simpson set complete laps. Sting Ray Robb triggered the first red flag of the event after stuffing the nose of his car into the Turn 1 tire barriers, and he was quickly removed and sent on his way.
More drivers started to appear after the 10-minute mark to begin their exploratory runs to check chassis balance on Firestone’s primary tires. With 15 minutes gone, Simpson was fastest with a 1m04.012s in the No. 8 Honda.
After 20 minutes, Rinus VeeKay was fastest with a 1m03.493s lap in the No. 18 Honda as footage of Power driving into the back of Kirkwood and pushing his car between corners was shown as the rear of Kirkwood’s machine was partially lifted off the ground.
With 17 minutes to go in the 40-minute full-field session, Alex Palou went to first with a 1m03.038s in the No. 10 Honda. David Malukas responded to take P1 moments later with a 1m02.812s in the No. 4 Chevy.
At five minutes to go, it was Malukas holding onto first followed by Marcus Ericsson, Newgarden, Palou, Felix Rosenqvist, and Herta as the top six.
The session closed with Malukas on top with Ericsson, McLaughlin, Newgarden, Palou, and Christian Lundgaard as the top six; Rosenqvist fell to seventh and had a harmless half-spin entering Turn 1.
As the first 10-minute split session began with 13 of the 27 drivers, Lundgaard was the first to lead with a 1m02.781s lap. Herta responded with a 1m02.614s and Lundgaard went right back to P1 with a 1m02.605s lap after four minutes in. All of their best laps were turned on Firestone’s faster alternate tires as they performed qualifying simulation runs.
Newgarden was next to claim P1 with a 1m02.445s tour as six minutes expired. Winding down to the last two minutes, Power took P1 with a 1m02.386s to create a Team Penske 1-2 and a 1-2-3 for Team Chevy.
The second group ventured out and Kirkwood was rocket-fast in an instant, turning a 1m01.751s ahead of Pato O’Ward’s 1m02.653s, nearly a full second ahead.
