Championship Leader Alex Palou Paces Opening Practice in Nashville

By David Morgan, Associate Editor

LEBANON, Tenn. – Championship weekend is officially underway in Nashville.

The drivers and teams of the NTT IndyCar Series got their first look at the 1.33-mile concrete oval in the opening practice session of the weekend for the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix and it was a familiar face at the top of the scoring pylon when all was said and done.

Alex Palou, who comes into the weekend looking to clinch his third title in the last four years, paced the session with a lap of 23.9565 seconds, 199.892 mph in his No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda to strike the first blow in the title bout.

He would be followed by his teammate Scott Dixon, along with Colton Herta to give Honda the top-three speeds in practice.

Pato O’Ward and Kyle Kirkwood would finish the session fourth and fifth, respectively.

“It’s bumpy out there. It’s a fast track,” O’Ward said. “It looks like there’s a lot of strong cars – Palou, Dixon, Herta. I think it’s going to be a good mix in qualifying. I think whoever manages to stay flat as much as possible is going to take the pole. I would expect it to be over a 200-mph average.

“You can definitely go flat. The thing to factor in is how much you can trim while still keeping it flat. So, it’ll be interesting. It’ll be cool.”

The session was also the first time for the teams and drivers to run the new Firestone alternate tire in anger, with a number of drivers putting up some fast times with it in the process.

“The alternate [tire] definitely is quicker,” O’Ward added. “There’s quite a bit more you can get out of it, especially in [Turn] 3 and 4 with that bump that seems to be catching out a lot of cars. Just a lot of wiggles. It can get gnarly pretty quick, so you have to stay on top of it.”

Palou’s closes championship rival, Will Power, was sixth fastest in practice as he looks to close the 33-point gap to Palou for the title. Scott McLaughlin, who is still mathematically alive in the championship race until the start of Sunday’s race finished practice in seventh.

The remainder of the top-10 speeds went to Ed Carpenter Racing’s Christian Rasmussen, Andretti Global and Marcus Ericsson, and AJ Foyt Racing pilot Santino Ferrucci.

The session got off to an inauspicious start when Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel looped his No. 6 Chevrolet in the opening minutes of practice after going over a bump in Turn 3 and 4, sending him hard into the outside wall.

Siegel was able to climb from his car unscathed, but the impact necessitated a lengthy repair to the SAFER barrier, eating away at precious track time for those that desperately want to get some laps under their belt at this track.

By the time the session restarted, just 50 minutes were left on the clock of the original 90 minutes.

“I’m fine,” Siegel said after being released from the Infield Care Center. “I was just getting up to speed doing my first laps here and at all felt really good. Super solid and then out of nowhere, I hit that bump in Turn 3 and spun. Came out of nowhere from my perspective.

“Really hate to start it out this way, but I believe we’ll have a fast race car. We’ve got the best people in the business working on it and I think we’ll be able to come back strong. Definitely not where I want to be right now, but we still have a chance this weekend.”

Next up will be qualifying to set the field for Sunday’s main event, scheduled for 2:15 pm ET on Peacock.

The time trials will be crucial for the championship race as Palou will have to take a grid penalty for the start of Sunday’s race. No matter where he times in during qualifying, he will start nine positions further back in the lineup.

Big Machine Music City Grand Prix Practice 1 Results