The action picked up significantly in Saturday’s second IndyCar Series test session at The Thermal Club as teams and drivers set aside the test list and ran qualification simulations for Saturday night’s time trials.
The speed runs that begin Saturday at 8 p.m. (ET) will set the lineups for Sunday’s two heat races. The top six in each heat will advance to the 12-car lineup that will determine IndyCar’s $1 Million Challenge.
Windy conditions caused a brief delay in the start of the final test session on Saturday.
At the end of a session where drivers were running off the challenging, slippery course, Christian Lundgaard of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing put down the fastest lap of the session with 3:30 left on the clock.
Lundgaard’s No. 45 Hy-Vee Honda lapped the 17-turn, 3.067-mile road course at The Thermal Club in Thermal, California at 1:38.2199.
“To be honest, I don’t really know how I did it,” Lundgaard said. “It’s a little tough with all of the wind guests. But the Hy-Vee Honda has been quick all week. I’m looking forward to seeing what this wind will do in group one. I have to give credit to the team. There was so much to be optimistic about leaving St. Pete and it’s good to reward them with something like this to give them optimism for the year.”
That knocked Team Penske’s Will Power off the top of the timing screen after the driver of the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet had a fast time of 1:38.6404.
“The direction of the wind actually made the track a bit better with a lot more fast corners facing the winds,” Power explained. “We went faster. I didn’t mind it. Tough conditions, you have to work it out. Not such a bad thing.”
Team Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin was third at 1:38.7240 in the No. 3 Chevrolet followed by Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi at 1:38.8014 in the No. 7 Chevrolet, Pato O’Ward’s 1:38.8775 in the No. 5 Chevrolet and Callum Ilott’s 1:38.8892 in the No. 6 Chevrolet.
It was the second of two days of testing before IndyCar’s first All-Star event since the Marlboro Challenge at Nazareth Raceway in Pennsylvania on Oct. 3, 1992. It is also the first non-points race on the IndyCar schedule since the Nikon Indy 300 at Surfer’s Paradise, Queensland, Australia on October 26, 2008.
The final two-hour test session was important for the teams to run qualification simulations for Saturday night’s time trials that will set the lineup for Sunday morning’s heat races. During the previous three test sessions, teams worked off their checklist of items by taking advantage of the lengthy track time to prepare for tracks later in the season.
The windstorm applied a layer of dust and sand on the track, adding another element for the drivers.
“It’s pretty rough over some of the exits,” Andretti Global driver Marcus Ericsson said. “The wind has been kicking up a lot here the last half-hour and there is a lot of sand and dust coming from the cars. We will wait and see where the track is at before we go out there.”
O’Ward said the track surface changes according to the weather conditions.
“Thermal has been very thermal, I would say,” O’Ward explained. “It’s really sensitive to temperature. Right now, it’s really gusty so it will be more challenging than what we felt this morning. We’ve been in the mix. We’re not quite there yet as a group. We are in good shape. It seems like the wind will get even stronger now. We’ll just send it and not try to wall it.”
O’Ward said according to the team’s data analysis, the Team Penske cars were strong over the long runs.
Sunday’s $1 Million Challenge will be 20 laps, with two 10-lap segments followed by a halftime break. But the same set of Firestone Firehawk Tires must be used for the 20 laps.
During one of his test runs, Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske ran off course, but with plenty of run-off area was able to return to the track without incident. Colton Herta of Andretti Global also drove off course after getting crossed up in one of the turns.
Graham Rahal also communicated to his crew, “It’s pretty slippery out here.”
Rookie driver Christian Rasmussen drove off course to bring out the Red Flag at 1:46 p.m. (PT) to bring out the red flag. The Ed Carpenter Racing driver also got a five-minute time penalty.
Four minutes later, it went back to green with 1 hour, 9 minutes left in the final test session of the weekend.
Even six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon had issues with the slippery surface when he spun the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda with 52 minutes left in the session. The track briefly went yellow, but not red.
Power had a twitch coming around one of the corners and he was the fastest driver of the session at that time. Later, Power also went off course on one of his qualifications simulated laps.
Although this event is geared toward an exclusive VIP crowd for members of The Thermal Club with a limited number of tickets sold for $500, the event has drawn some positive reviews.
“The people that run this place and their whole team are committed to greatness and they know racing,” Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles said. “Everyone is treated like a VIP. It’s gorgeous. It’s high quality and it’s fun.”
The $500 ticket price includes access to the paddock and pit lane with all food, drinks and driver question and answer sessions included for all three days. That amount is much less than similar amenities for VIP access at other mainstream sporting events, including major college football, the NFL, NBA and NASCAR.
The teams have a two-hour break before resuming for the first actual competition of the weekend, qualifications to set the field for Sunday’s two heat races. The qualification session is set for 8 p.m. (ET) and will be streamed on Peacock.