Marcus Armstrong shrugged off a heavy cold and a missed test to top the opening practice session for IndyCar's XPEL Grand Prix at Road America, leading a Meyer Shank Racing one-two on Friday ahead of Sunday's race at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
The New Zealander lapped the 14-turn, 4.014-mile permanent road course - the longest on the calendar - in 1m44.2714s, an average of 138.585mph, to edge teammate Felix Rosenqvist by just 0.0787s. Alex Palou was third for Chip Ganassi Racing, with Arrow McLaren's Pato O'Ward and Nolan Siegel completing the top five. Notably, neither Armstrong nor the Ganassi cars took part in a recent five-team private test at the venue.
"I don't think we're on the back foot. I don't feel like we missed anything," said Armstrong, who is battling flu-like symptoms this weekend. "We were fast right out the gate. That's the main thing. I don't think we strung together a perfect lap ... [But] I feel pretty confident around here.
"It's good to be back on a road course. It reminds me a bit of Spa in Europe - somewhere that I'm very well familiar with. It's cool. It's nice and smooth. Seems like the tyre is a bit better this year, too."
If the speed was encouraging, Armstrong refused to read too much into it. The 138.585mph lap, he noted, came on a weekend when he was running on next to no rest. "Sicker than a dog" was his own description of his condition, and he leaned into the gallows humour afterwards.
"It's good to top the Friday 500 here in Elkhart Lake," Armstrong said. "At least I've proven to myself that I can still be fast with two hours of sleep. We didn't do anything spectacular. I don't think that I did the perfect lap, either. Felix is right up there, too. So it's all good."
Asked to grade his season so far, the 10th-placed Armstrong - one spot adrift of where he sat a year ago - was characteristically blunt. "Maybe a C. Certainly hasn't been an A. [Need to] win a race. That would be pretty cool. Qualify pole. Lap everyone. Do what Palou does every weekend, that would help." A fifth-place finish at the Indianapolis 500 after leading the final restart still stings as one of the season's missed opportunities.
He was also wary of the classic Friday trap. "It's always nice to be good in practice, but [it can be] a worry when you're quick in practice," he said. "Sometimes the red [softer alternate tyres] don't work one day, then they do the next. But I feel happy that Felix is up there, too. Also Alex. I think we have a good, strong package this weekend."
The session was briefly halted with about 25 minutes remaining when Juncos Hollinger Racing's Sting Ray Robb ran wide onto the exit kerbing at Turn 14, spun across the track and hit the barrier. Robb was uninjured, but the incident echoed Josef Newgarden's crash at the same corner last season.
Newgarden himself faced a different kind of pressure. Recovering from foot surgery only days after winning at Gateway - and still nursing the injury sustained in his Indianapolis 500 crash - the Team Penske driver managed 18 laps to end the session 14th. On standby in case he could not continue was Felipe Nasr, the three-time IMSA champion and three-time Daytona 24 Hours winner, summoned by Roger Penske and ready to step in.
"It's hard to say," Nasr said of his chances of substituting. "I've got a lot of respect for Josef, what he's been doing and trying to recover from the injuries ... But as a team member, I've got to be ready. I'm here to support the team, and I'll help them as much as they need me. It's a track that I know, so ... Let's wait and see."
Qualifying takes place on Saturday afternoon, with the race scheduled for Sunday.
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