Dixon lapped the 14-turn, 2.439-mile IMS road course in 1m10.9851s in the 30-minute session, which acts as the warm-up for tomorrow’s race.
The session took on more importance after a remarkable qualifying session beforehand, in which title contenders Alex Palou (Ganassi) and Josef Newgarden (Penske) could only manage eighth and 19th on the grid respectively.
Firestone has brought a harder compound this weekend than it did for May’s event here, which caused chaos for some – most notably Team Penske, with Scott McLaughlin the best of its runners in 11th (although he’ll start 10th), with Will Power in 16th.
“Basically the red tire [alternate] is a primary from another circuit,” explained Dixon.
Newgarden’s day turned even more sour when he was given a 10-minute penalty in this session for missing the driver weigh-in. He responded by going fastest with 1m11.7878s after 10 of his 20 minutes available.
Former race winner here Rinus VeeKay beat that with 1m11.4844s for Ed Carpenter Racing, before Callum Ilott set 1m11.4315s and then Palou grabbed P1 with 1m11.1365s.
Dixon – who will start 15th after also struggling in qualifying – went to the top of the timesheet with four minutes to go with 1m10.9851s, ending the session fastest ahead of Palou, McLaughlin, Illot, Kyle Kirkwood (who’ll start 13th for Andretti Autosport), VeeKay, Colton Herta (starting 11th for Andretti) and Marcus Ericsson (Ganassi – who suffered more clutch issues in this session).
Polewinner Graham Rahal was only 17th in this session.
Tomorrow’s race starts at 2:00pm ET.
Cla
Nº
Driver
Car / Engine
Time
Delay
Laps
1
9
Scott Dixon
Dallara/Honda
1’10.9851
20
2
10
Alex Palou
Dallara/Honda
1’11.1365
0.1514
20
3
3
Scott McLaughlin
Dallara/Chevrolet
1’11.3073
0.3222
16
4
77
Callum Ilott
Dallara/Chevrolet
1’11.4315
0.4464
21
5
27
Kyle Kirkwood
Dallara/Honda
1’11.4655
0.4804
17
6
21
R.van Kalmthout
Dallara/Chevrolet
1’11.4844
0.4993
23
7
26
Colton Herta
Dallara/Honda
1’11.4854
0.5003
19
8
8
Marcus Ericsson
Dallara/Honda
1’11.6414
0.6563
23
9
78
Agustín Canapino
Dallara/Chevrolet
1’11.6475
0.6624
20
10
11
Marcus Armstrong
Dallara/Honda
1’11.6663
0.6812
23
11
45
C.Lundgaard
Dallara/Honda
1’11.6714
0.6863
22
12
18
David Malukas
Dallara/Honda
1’11.7032
0.7181
22
13
7
Alexander Rossi
Dallara/Chevrolet
1’11.7497
0.7646
19
14
2
Josef Newgarden
Dallara/Chevrolet
1’11.7878
0.8027
14
15
06
H.Castroneves
Dallara/Honda
1’11.8001
0.8150
21
16
14
Santino Ferrucci
Dallara/Chevrolet
1’11.8514
0.8663
19
17
15
Graham Rahal
Dallara/Honda
1’11.8863
0.9012
23
18
60
Linus Lundqvist
Dallara/Honda
1’11.9479
0.9628
19
19
6
Felix Rosenqvist
Dallara/Chevrolet
1’11.9634
0.9783
20
20
29
D.Defrancesco
Dallara/Honda
1’11.9715
0.9864
17
21
28
Romain Grosjean
Dallara/Honda
1’12.0360
1.0509
20
22
5
Patricio O’Ward
Dallara/Chevrolet
1’12.0747
1.0896
22
23
12
Will Power
Dallara/Chevrolet
1’12.1495
1.1644
22
24
55
B.Pedersen
Dallara/Chevrolet
1’12.1797
1.1946
19
25
20
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Dallara/Chevrolet
1’12.1851
1.2000
17
26
30
Jack Harvey
Dallara/Honda
1’12.4943
1.5092
17
27
51
Sting Ray Robb
Dallara/Honda
1’13.0443
2.0592
18
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