After the rookie test day and some tests with the new Windscreen, the official testing sessions at the Phoenix International Raceway with the entire grid started yesterday. Graham Rahal has set the best time on a day on which Honda has been generally better than Chevrolet and RLL has been a step ahead of the rest of the teams.
drivers on the first testing day in Phoenix, Arizona. After one daytime session, held in the afternoon, and one night session, drivers completed a total of 3264 laps, being Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing being the quickest team of the day, with Graham Rahal on the lead and Takuma Sato in second place.
The testing day was split into two sessions, three hours long each. The first, held in the afternoon, had Takuma Sato, current Indianapolis 500 champion and new RLL driver, as the fastest driver. His best lap was a 187.022. 2017 winner in Phoenix, Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, finished behind the Japanese driver.
Behind them, A.J. Foyt had the most surprising results as Tony Kanaan finished third and Rookie Matheus Leist finished fourth. However, the next Chevrolet was on tenth place, and it was Will Power‘s one. The other Chevrolet teams, Harding, Juncos, ECR and Carlin were at the lowest positions.
The night fell over the Arizona desert and the beasts got back on track at the small tri-oval. Times were quicker during the night, with only a couple of exceptions. RLL led again and put their two cars on the first positions, but this time it was Graham Rahal who finished on top (189.090), closely followed by his team mate Sato.
Like it happened on the first session, only three Chevys were on top positions, with Pagenaud third, Josef Newgarden fourth and Kanaan fifth. All of the rookies ended up on the second half of the table, being Leist (10th) the quickest of them, again.
Surprisingly, there were no accidents during the six hours of activity on track. Rookie driver for Juncos Kyle Kaiser was the driver who did the most laps at the end of the day, with 256.
The first IndyCar testing day in Phoenix is over, but the cars will be back on track on Saturday for another day with the same format and which could be also seen on the series’ official website.
