Newgarden blitzes opening practice at Mid-Ohio

IndyCar Series champion Josef Newgarden has thrown down the gauntlet at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, comfortably topping opening practice.

No rival in the 26-car field got within two tenths’ of Newgarden’s benchmark, having nailed a 1:07.2524s on his 13th lap of the session.

It’s been a gut-wrenching recent period for the Team Penske driver, having looked set to win the past two races from pole position only to give up the lead late in the piece on each occasion.

In the second leg at Detroit, he was run down by a fast-finishing Pato O’Ward.

Then, a fortnight ago at Road America, technical troubles saw him tumble from the lead to finish 21st.

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All of this has come in a frustrating season of near misses for Team Penske, which remarkably remains winless in IndyCar this year.

Newgarden though is upbeat about how things are shaping up at Mid-Ohio following Practice 1.

“I thought it was a good start. I was really happy with my car, to be honest, right out of the box,” said the 29-year-old.

“It’s still hard to warm up here, like always, but once we got going I was super pleased with the car.

“I felt like I was really locked down. We made some improvements without a doubt compared to last year. We’ve got to keep it up.

“Temperatures are going to change this weekend. Not so much tomorrow, but for Sunday, I think, will be quite a bit different.

“And just try to stay prepared and hold the speed we have right now. If we can do that, we’ll be in good shape.”

O’Ward was second in Practice 1, ahead of Jack Harvey in third.

Series leader Alex Palou was ninth, more than half a second shy of Newgarden’s best effort.

Among the Australasian contingent, Scott Dixon was seventh, Will Power 11th and Scott McLaughlin 16th.

Another 45-minute practice session will precede qualifying overnight.

Results: IndyCar Practice 1 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course

RANK	DRIVER	CAR NO.	BEST TIME	TOTAL LAPS	DIFFERENCE
1	Josef Newgarden	2	1:07.2524	17	–.—-
2	Pato O’Ward	5	1:07.5050	15	0.2526
3	Jack Harvey	60	1:07.5840	16	0.3316
4	Alexander Rossi	27	1:07.7245	18	0.4721
5	Graham Rahal	15	1:07.7561	18	0.5037
6	Romain Grosjean	51	1:07.7589	17	0.5065
7	Scott Dixon	9	1:07.7657	18	0.5133
8	Sebastien Bourdais	14	1:07.7711	18	0.5187
9	Alex Palou	10	1:07.7951	18	0.5427
10	James Hinchcliffe	29	1:07.8223	16	0.5699
11	Will Power	12	1:07.8863	19	0.6339
12	Simon Pagenaud	22	1:08.0046	16	0.7522
13	Felix Rosenqvist	7	1:08.0265	18	0.7741
14	Colton Herta	26	1:08.0330	14	0.7806
15	Ryan Hunter-Reay	28	1:08.0740	16	0.8216
16	Scott McLaughlin	3	1:08.1562	22	0.9038
17	Conor Daly	20	1:08.2312	18	0.9788
18	Rinus VeeKay	21	1:08.2367	21	0.9843
19	Max Chilton	59	1:08.3103	18	1.0579
20	Ed Jones	18	1:08.3526	16	1.1002
21	Marcus Ericsson	8	1:08.4101	21	1.1577
22	Ryan Norman	52	1:08.8122	17	1.5598
23	Dalton Kellett	4	1:09.0695	20	1.8171
24	Santino Ferrucci	45	1:09.0970	17	1.8446
25	Takuma Sato	30	1:09.6824	12	2.43
26	Jimmie Johnson	48	1:09.8165	25	2.5641