Everything you need to know about Barber IndyCar Friday

Colton Herta topped practice to kick off the Barber Motorsports Park IndyCar weekend, in what is the perfect way to rebound from crashing out while fighting for the win last time out at Long Beach.

Herta and the Andretti Autosport team looked really strong in the wake of an April test at the same circuit, which was also attended by Chip Ganassi, Ed Carpenter, Meyer Shank and Juncos Hollinger, but notably not Arrow McLaren SP or Team Penske.

Ganassi’s Alex Palou and Andretti’s Herta, Romain Grosjean and Alexander Rossi all took turns at the top of the order on Friday as the teams looked to suss out a new Firestone tyre that is the same construction but a more durable design.

Herta set a 1m06.5149s to beat Palou, who won on his Ganassi debut here last year to start a season he’d cap off as the series champion.

Rossi – who qualified second in 2021 – took third ahead of 2022 fast starter Grosjean who lies sixth despite what was effectively a DNF at Texas.

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Some may have been ready to hit the panic button for Team Penske given it was well outside the top 10 for most of the session, but Scott McLaughlin showed what it could do by jumping to 10th inside the last 15 minutes and then to fifth as the chequered flag flew.

Penske has won all three races to start 2022 – two with Josef Newgarden, one with McLaughlin and Will Power has the best average finish through three races – while Newgarden has the most wins at this venue in the field with three and Power has two.

It was certainly slow to start the session and Power was 16th and Newgarden 18th, with Newgarden saying he believed his team is playing catch-up for missing the April test, although clearly McLaughlin gives it plenty of hope.

.@josefnewgarden finished 18th in Practice 1 at @BarberMotorPark.

Can he get past that result to continue his positive momentum leading into this weekend?#INDYCAR // #HIGPA // @Team_Penske pic.twitter.com/SmW3EdqFXG

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) April 29, 2022

Ganassi’s Scott Dixon was one of the few late movers in the session as most of the fastest times came just after halfway in the one-hour session to go. He was dropped to sixth by the late jumping McLaughlin.

Dixon has six second-place finishes in 11 races but no win at the venue, a stat he’ll be looking to correct on Sunday.

Pato O’Ward – who confirmed to The Race this week that he is close to a contract extension with McLaren – was the top Chevrolet driver in seventh despite his car looking extremely loose at the rear, and he described the track as feeling almost icy.

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With this being the first hour of a total of two and a half hours of practice before Sunday’s race, O’Ward and Arrow McLaren MP are another team that didn’t test in Alabama in April and will be hopeful of negating that loss.

Callum Ilott was one of the drivers who did test at Barber in April with Juncos Hollinger and was the top rookie of the session in eighth, at a venue where you may have expected one of his rivals with more experience of American open-wheel junior formula at Barber to excel.

Christian Lundgaard and Devlin DeFrancesco were 13th and 16th, while American Road to Indy ladder climbers David Malukas (22nd) and Kyle Kirkwood (23rd) appeared to struggle, at least on the timing screens.

Ilott said he and his one-car team had experimented but his car at the start of the session was best, hence him not being able to improve despite multiple laps later on.

Behind Ilott, Marcus Ericsson made it three Ganassi drivers in the top nine, while April tester Rinus VeeKay jumped to 10th late on for Ed Carpenter Racing.

Practice 1 Results