Pagenaud fastest, McLaughlin third in IndyCar Practice 1 at Long Beach

Simon Pagenaud has set the pace by more than four tenths of a second in Practice 1 for IndyCar’s Grand Prix of Long Beach.

The Meyer Shank Racing driver went as quick as a 1:07.1991s in what ended up being a 45-minute session, with fellow Honda driver Alexander Rossi next-best on a 1:07.6012s in his Andretti Autosport entry.

Scott McLaughlin and Team Penske team-mate Josef Newgarden were each slightly slower again, with personal-bests of 1:07.6720s and 1:07.7282s.

There were two red flags during the session, one triggered by Jimmie Johnson (Chip Ganassi Racing) when he grabbed too much kerb at Turn 5 and understeered into the tyre barriers.

The other was necessitated for a more innocuous reason, namely that Dalton Kellett (AJ Foyt Racing) spun and stalled.

Johnson, however, was not the only driver to come to grief, with McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward hanging the tail of Car #5 out at Turn 5 and smacking the left-rear on a bare concrete section of the wall.

Behind Pagenaud, Rossi, McLaughlin, and Newgarden on the timesheet, it was Marcus Ericsson (CGR) rounding out the top five on a 1:07.8425s.

The rest of the top 10 was Colton Herta (Andretti), Alex Palou (CGR), Will Power (Penske), Callum Ilott (Juncos Hollinger Racing), and Kyle Kirkwood (AJ Foyt).

Scott Dixon was 11th all told in the #9 CGR Honda at 0.8487s off the pace, while O’Ward got back on track with a new toe link and ended up 14th-quickest.

Practice 2 takes place tomorrow morning at 01:45 AEST, and Qualifying at 05:00 AEST, with both sessions streamed live and ad-free on Stan Sport.

Results: Practice 1

Pos	Num	Driver	C/E/T	Fastest lap	Split 1st/prev	Lap
1	60	Simon Pagenaud	D/H/F	1:07.1991		14/18
2	27	Alexander Rossi	D/H/F	1:07.6012	0.4021/0.4021	17/22
3	3	Scott McLaughlin	D/C/F	1:07.6720	0.4729/0.0708	16/19
4	2	Josef Newgarden	D/C/F	1:07.7282	0.5291/0.0562	18/18
5	8	Marcus Ericsson	D/H/F	1:07.8425	0.6434/0.1143	5/17
6	26	Colton Herta	D/H/F	1:07.8783	0.6792/0.0358	17/21
7	10	Alex Palou	D/H/F	1:07.9113	0.7122/0.0330	13/16
8	12	Will Power	D/C/F	1:08.0000	0.8009/0.0887	16/21
9	77	Callum Ilott	D/C/F	1:08.0201	0.8210/0.0201	18/23
10	14	Kyle Kirkwood	D/C/F	1:08.0221	0.8230/0.0020	20/20
11	9	Scott Dixon	D/H/F	1:08.0478	0.8487/0.0257	12/15
12	06	Helio Castroneves	D/H/F	1:08.1579	0.9588/0.1101	16/16
13	15	Graham Rahal	D/H/F	1:08.1737	0.9746/0.0158	11/14
14	5	Pato O’Ward	D/C/F	1:08.4147	1.2156/0.2410	8/9
15	7	Felix Rosenqvist	D/C/F	1:08.4615	1.2624/0.0468	12/17
16	18	David Malukas	D/H/F	1:08.4838	1.2847/0.0223	18/20
17	45	Jack Harvey	D/H/F	1:08.5799	1.3808/0.0961	16/18
18	4	Dalton Kellett	D/C/F	1:08.7003	1.5012/0.1204	19/19
19	20	Conor Daly	D/C/F	1:08.7009	1.5018/0.0006	18/18
20	21	Rinus VeeKay	D/C/F	1:08.7706	1.5715/0.0697	6/13
21	30	Christian Lundgaard	D/H/F	1:08.7736	1.5745/0.0030	17/20
22	28	Romain Grosjean	D/H/F	1:08.8407	1.6416/0.0671	6/21
23	51	Takuma Sato	D/H/F	1:09.2460	2.0469/0.4053	6/17
24	48	Jimmie Johnson	D/H/F	1:09.6203	2.4212/0.3743	6/7
25	29	Devlin DeFrancesco	D/H/F	1:09.6432	2.4441/0.0229	9/20
26	11	Tatiana Calderon	D/C/F	1:10.2096	3.0105/0.5664	16/18