ELKHART LAKE, Wis. – Alexander Rossi of Andretti Autosport continued his recent resurgence in Friday’s IndyCar practice session at Road America.
Rossi was the fastest on Friday for Sunday’s Sonsio Vehicle Protection Grand Prix at Road America with a fast time of 1:45.6027 in the No. 27 NAPA/AutoNation Honda around the 4.014-mile, 14-turn road course.
Rossi’s last IndyCar win came at Road America in 2019.
“I love this place,” Rossi said. “I think it’s one of the top five permanent road courses in the world in my book. It’s got everything. It’s just a joy to drive around here. There’s not much else to say. I don’t think there’s anything I dislike about it.
“It’s a beautiful part of the world. The people are great. The fans are awesome. The weather is usually pretty good. All A-pluses in my book.”
His Andretti Autosport teammate Colton Herta was second at 1:45.7361 in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda. Marcus Ericsson, winner of the Indianapolis 500, was third at 1:45.8050 in the No. 8 Huski Chocolate Honda at 1:45.8050.
Click here for practice results.
Last week’s Detroit Grand Prix race winner, Will Power of Team Penske, was fourth in a Chevrolet at 1:45.8592.
Defending IndyCar champion Alex Palou rounded out the top five at 1:45.9140 mph in the No. 10 American Legion Honda.
Teams had a 75-minute practice session on Friday to give them additional time to practice. But in the early moments of practice, there were few cars on track.
For several seasons, teams and drivers have complained about lack of practice time, but when IndyCar gave those teams extra time, most did not take advantage of it.
Part of that reason could be tire limitations that are implemented every weekend as a cost-saving measure to the teams.
“It’s a bit weird to have the Firestone alternates on Day 1, so it will be interesting to see how that translates tomorrow,” Rossi said. “Obviously the track evolution will continue to get better every session of the weekend. We’ll have to see how that translates from practice one all the way to qualifying.
“I guess there’s a pro and a con, right? The pro is you have more time, if you’re off on the reds, to adapt to it with the way that it is now. However, the swing, like the track evolution usually from practice one to practice two is like over a second, then it takes “another small step to qualifying.
“Now what you have to do is see, okay, the reds were good when the track was average, and then kind of guesstimate based on how good the track in theory is going to go in practice two, right? You don’t actually understand what the alternates are going to do on the better track.
“Does that matter? I hope not, right, because obviously we are in a good spot. It is new for all of us. If it makes a difference or not, I don’t know yet.
“It’s certainly something we’re going to have to make the offset adjustments going into the qualifying. You got to make those a little bit bigger than we have had in the past couple weekends.”
Rossi had the early top speed in the No. 27 NAPA Auto Nation Honda in 1:46.6714.
“The car rolled off really strong, which is positive on these weekends where it’s so close you got to start from a good point,” Rossi said. “Hats off to the team for the effort that they did in the prep for this event. We just got to keep it rolling.”
Rossi’s season has been on an upswing since he finished fifth in the Indianapolis 500 two weeks ago. Last week, he finished second to Will Power. On Friday, he set the pace at a place where he had a dominant victory in 2019.
“The month of May was good for us,” Rossi said. “Unfortunately, the GP (at Indy) didn’t work out as we hoped. There’s been a lot of silver linings, if you will. Yeah, we just hopefully can go one step higher than last weekend here on Sunday.”
Grosjean gave Andretti Autosport three drivers in the top four early in the session at 1:46.9302 in the No. 28 Honda.
Power was fifth at 1:46.9630 in the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet for Team Penske.
That’s how it stood with 30 minutes left in the session.
With 19:32 left in the session, Helio Castroneves lost control coming out of the “Canada Corner” – Turn 12. That brought out the red flag and stopped the session with 18:51 left.
Castroneves was running the Firestone “Red” tires, the softer compound rubber used for speed.
The engines were re-fired with 13 minutes left and the standings the same as before.
But in the final 10 minutes, the timing list began to change, and the times decreased as the speeds increased.
Herta took over the top spot briefly before Rossi reclaimed it.
Further back in the pack, Jimmie Johnson ran the 23rd fastest time at 1:47.7692 in the No. 48 Carvana/American Legion Honda. Simona De Silvestro, making her Road America debut in an IndyCar for Beth Paretta Autosport, was last in the 27th-car field at 1:48.7490 in the No. 16 Chevrolet.
That entry is being run in conjunction with Ed Carpenter Racing.
“I felt like I went out in the session and literally the car was driving me,” Silvestro said. “I was just getting used to everything.
“I don’t want to be last, but I think we weren’t too far off in the sense. I think there’s a few things that I really need to clean up driving-wise, just getting used to it.
“It was really the first day back I think after seven years in an IndyCar. It feels pretty familiar, but definitely I think to really be where I want to be, I think I’m going to hopefully sleep over it and be better tomorrow, a bit more acclimated.”
Another practice is scheduled for 10:45 a.m. ET on Saturday with qualifications set for 1:45 p.m. ET.