Indycar is driving for the first time in Thermal Club. Alex Palou dominated Free Practice 1, while Christian Lundgaard showed how he is adjusting to his new team.
After the exhibition race last year, the Thermal Club Indycar Grand Prix is back. That 4.82-km South Palm circuit adds a highly demanding trajectory on top to get to a total of 17 turns. The layout consists of sweepers, tight corners, long straightaways, and elevation changes, providing a proper driving and engineering challenge to teams.
Winner on top
With a top lap of 1:40.5486, the number 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda Alex Palou dominated the field. The Spaniard, who won last year, was really happy with his session : “We didn’t get many laps because of some red flags, but the car rolled off really well considering it was very different to last year with different tires and the hybrid unit, and we didn’t test here this year”. Andretti Global couldn’t catch Palou but still produced the strongest start to the weekend of any team, taking the second, third and fourth spots on the speed chart with its three drivers. The most significant incident concerned Robert Shwartzman. He was forced to stop on track, just past Turn 6, when a fire erupted in the rear of his PREMA Racing Chevrolet. The driver number 83 quickly climbed from the car and was unhurt. A problem for him, as he didn’t have the occasion to do a single lap.
Adjusting well
Christian Lundgaard set the fastest time in Free Practice 2, in 01:40.6421. Something to give him hope before qualifying : “We had an issue on the car. So, going into today, we felt pretty confident from where we were on the primary tires yesterday. I think today we kind of proved that. We maximized what we had today, and going into qualifying, this is a confidence boost for all of us. We’ll be there”. The session was relatively calm. At the beginning of the session, a shift problem appeared on Kyffin Simpson’s car. But he managed to get the car back on track later on. For the second time in Thermal, Robert Shwartzman didn’t complete a single lap. This will probably significantly compromise his weekend. Alex Palou finished second, showing how at ease he is on this track.