STEAM CORNERS, Ohio – Josef Newgarden admitted he was pretty hot from the sweltering conditions Friday at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, which is unusual considering that he lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
One of the reasons Newgarden may have been so overheated was the blistering pace of his fast lap in Friday’s 75-minute practice session.
He whipped his No. 2 PPG Chevrolet around the 13-turn, 2.258-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in 1:07.0549 for a speed of 121.226 miles per hour.
That was in practice for Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Presented by the All-New Honda Civic R.
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“It was hot,” Newgarden said. “I’m really hot right now. I’ve rarely been this warm in the car. We’ve had some hot days; it’s not like this is an abnormal weather day for us, but I just felt like I was roasting inside the car. I got out as quickly as I could as that session was done.
“But the car feels really good. I think the temp definitely made the track grip low. It felt very difficult to drive the car today, to bring it up to temperature. Firestone has a new tire here from last year, and it’s tougher to bring up to temp. Feels like a little less grip.
“I think some of that is also just the ambient and the track temp that’s causing that, but I’m relatively happy. I think our car was good off the truck, relatively.
“But I’m excited. I think with PPG, this is a big weekend for us. This is very close to PPG’s home. I have a lot of big support here always for them, and we obviously want to do well with Team Chevy right in Honda’s beautiful backyard.”
Newgarden’s speed was better than Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou, whose fastest lap was 1:07.2610 (120.855) in the No. 10 NTT DATA Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing.
He was followed by Arrow McLaren SP’s Felix Rosenqvist’s 1:07.3171 (120.754 mph) in the No. 7 Chevrolet, Marcus Ericsson’s 1:07.3720 (120.655 mph) in the No. 8 Huski Chocolate Honda and Colton Herta’s No. 26 Gainbridge Honda for Andretti Autosport, who ran a 1:07.4998 (120.427 mph).
“It’s always amazing coming back here,” Herta said. “It’s really fun, especially on 4th of July weekend, always get a good crowd and a lot of people here for Friday, which is awesome.
“The car was relatively good. I was pretty happy with it. Same story for everybody, but traffic seems to be a big problem with getting clean laps and putting down a good lap time. Luckily my red run was relatively clean. I was happy with that. And then every other run was pretty messy.
“We’re at a good starting point.”
There are 27 drivers entered in this weekend’s race.
In addition to winning the 106th Indianapolis 500, Ericsson is the NTT IndyCar Series points leader. He is 27 points ahead of second-place Power of Team Penske.
Power is followed by Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward, 45 out of the lead. Defending NTT IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou is fifth, 47 points out.
Six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon is sixth, 69 points behind the leader followed by Alexander Rossi (75 points out), Felix Rosenqvist (90 back of the leader), Scott McLaughlin (94 points behind) and Simon Pagenaud (96 out).
There are 11 drivers within 100 points of the championship lead. Colton Herta is 11th, 97 points out.