Iowa newcomer McLaughlin leads 19-car IndyCar test

The three-time Supercars champion, who opened his second season of IndyCar racing with a win in St. Petersburg, has not yet had a chance to race on the 0.894-mile D-shaped oval track near Des Moines, as the event ended the 2021 schedule, his rookie year.

But a best lap of 18.5375 seconds in the 220 laps McLaughlin put in today’s test was an average speed of 173.61 mph, making him a hair faster than teammate Will Power, who put in an impressive 282 laps .

Takuma Sato showed similar form in the Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing-Honda, as seen in this year’s combo at Texas Motor Speedway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, while the top rookie honor went to Christian Lundgaard in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda.

Josef Newgarden, who won three times in Iowa, finished fifth ahead of Pato O’Ward in the Arrow McLaren SP-Chevy.

Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson was fastest of the Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda quartet, ahead of Graham Rahal (RLL), while four-time Indy winner Helio Castroneves, who took his final IndyCar win five years ago with Penske at the Iowa Speedway. , came ninth.

While Andretti Autosport-Honda was notable for his absence, Michael Andretti’s squad has a technical partnership with MSR so that they will collect useful data from Castroneves’ and team-mate Simon Pagenaud’s 214 total laps. The Iowa test is seen as particularly important, as the return will be the only double-header on the IndyCar schedule this year, on July 23 and 24, as rounds 11 and 12.

Meanwhile, all four Andretti drivers – Alexander Rossi, Colton Herta, Romain Grosjean and Devlin DeFrancesco – will test on Thursday at the Indianapolis racetrack, along with Paretta Autosport’s Simona De Silvestro, the Arrow McLaren SP pair O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist. and Kyle Kirkwood of AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy.