Power quickest, McLaughlin third in Iowa IndyCar practice

Team Penske’s Will Power has gone fastest in the sole Practice session for this weekend’s Iowa IndyCar double-header.

Power headed up an all-Chevrolet top three at the end of the 90-minute session, ahead of Ed Carpenter Racing’s Conor Daly and fellow Penske driver Scott McLaughlin, with Honda’s best being Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou.

Daly’s personal-best lap, a 173.239mph (278.801km/h)/18.5778s, had him quickest after the initial runs and that was still the case when a Caution was called in the 23rd minute for a track inspection.

In fact, it took until the 70th minute for that marker to be bettered, when Power laid down a 173.285mph (278.875km/h)/18.5729s lap.

Minutes later, McLaughlin, whose only previous visit to Iowa Speedway was a test last month, made it a Penske one-three with a 173.083mph (278.550km/h)/18.5946s effort.

Those laps were followed shortly by a second Caution, ostensibly for another track inspection, although it coincided with a fox running across the 0.875-mile tri-oval.

The green flag flew again with just over 10 minutes remaining, but the top three remained the same for the balance of proceedings.

Palou, however, crept up to fourth on a 172.764mph (278.037km/h)/18.6289s, edging Pato O’Ward to fifth after the McLaren SP driver had gone as quick as a 172.687mph (277.913km/h)/18.6372s.

Rounding out the top 10 were series leader Marcus Ericsson (Ganassi), Josef Newgarden (Penske), Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing), Jimmie Johnson (Ganassi), and last-start winner Scott Dixon (Ganassi).

Notables further back included Felix Rosenqvist (McLaren SP) in 12th, Colton Herta (Andretti Autosport w/ Curb-Agajanian) in 14th, Takuma Sato (Dale Coyne Racing w/ Rick Ware Racing) in 15th, Simon Pagenaud (Meyer Shank Racing) in 17th, Helio Castroneves (MSR) in 19th, and Alexander Rossi (Andretti Autosport) in 20th.

Qualifying is a two-lap format, with drivers’ respective first laps setting the grid for Race 1 of the weekend and second laps for Race 2.

Qualifying gets underway on Sunday morning at 00:30 AEST, and Race 1 at 06:06 AEST, with both of those sessions live and ad-free on Stan Sport.

CLICK HERE for Power reaction

Results: Practice

Pos	Num	Driver	C/E/T	Fastest lap	Speed (mph)	Split 1st/prev	Lap
1	12	Will Power	D/C/F	0:18.5729	173.285		77/90
2	20	Conor Daly	D/C/F	0:18.5778	173.239	0.0049/0.0049	4/93
3	3	Scott McLaughlin	D/C/F	0:18.5946	173.083	0.0217/0.0168	80/103
4	10	Alex Palou	D/H/F	0:18.6289	172.764	0.0560/0.0343	114/119
5	5	Pato O’Ward	D/C/F	0:18.6372	172.687	0.0643/0.0083	53/106
6	8	Marcus Ericsson	D/H/F	0:18.7313	171.819	0.1584/0.0941	78/81
7	2	Josef Newgarden	D/C/F	0:18.7599	171.557	0.1870/0.0286	4/91
8	15	Graham Rahal	D/H/F	0:18.8242	170.971	0.2513/0.0643	8/84
9	48	Jimmie Johnson	D/H/F	0:18.8436	170.795	0.2707/0.0194	54/85
10	9	Scott Dixon	D/H/F	0:18.8476	170.759	0.2747/0.0040	84/90
11	21	Rinus VeeKay	D/C/F	0:18.8531	170.709	0.2802/0.0055	5/106
12	7	Felix Rosenqvist	D/C/F	0:18.8606	170.641	0.2877/0.0075	63/102
13	45	Jack Harvey	D/H/F	0:18.8918	170.360	0.3189/0.0312	103/114
14	26	Colton Herta	D/H/F	0:18.9071	170.222	0.3342/0.0153	56/81
15	51	Takuma Sato	D/H/F	0:18.9191	170.114	0.3462/0.0120	7/94
16	30	Christian Lundgaard	D/H/F	0:18.9276	170.037	0.3547/0.0085	82/89
17	60	Simon Pagenaud	D/H/F	0:18.9301	170.015	0.3572/0.0025	72/93
18	18	David Malukas	D/H/F	0:18.9416	169.912	0.3687/0.0115	79/95
19	06	Helio Castroneves	D/H/F	0:18.9487	169.848	0.3758/0.0071	28/92
20	27	Alexander Rossi	D/H/F	0:18.9906	169.473	0.4177/0.0419	54/77
21	77	Callum Ilott	D/C/F	0:19.0681	168.785	0.4952/0.0775	87/91
22	33	Ed Carpenter	D/C/F	0:19.0904	168.587	0.5175/0.0223	5/77
23	28	Romain Grosjean	D/H/F	0:19.1150	168.370	0.5421/0.0246	48/95
24	29	Devlin DeFrancesco	D/H/F	0:19.1753	167.841	0.6024/0.0603	91/93
25	4	Dalton Kellett	D/C/F	0:19.2663	167.048	0.6934/0.0910	90/91
26	14	Kyle Kirkwood	D/C/F	0:19.2954	166.796	0.7225/0.0291	53/78