Christian Lundgaard made his mark during Friday’s free practice at Portland International Raceway. The McLaren driver was fastest on both the hard and soft tires, although Alex Palou followed just six thousandths of a second behind. Felix Rosenqvist set the third-fastest time, ahead of Graham Rahal.

Lundgaard sets fastest time in combined session

After a quiet start to the session, Christian Lundgaard was the first big name to appear at the top of the timing sheets.

Meanwhile, Colton Herta was unable to leave the pits at all due to an issue discovered with his Honda power unit just before the start of practice. The American only went out with three minutes remaining on the clock in the combined session and even managed to set the eighth-fastest time in that stint.

When most top-team drivers took to the track, the session became more chaotic. With 24 minutes remaining, the session had to be briefly halted after a helmet hose was found lying on the track.

Less than two minutes after the green flag waved, the red flag was brought out again. This time Scott Dixon had gone off in the final corner. The six-time IndyCar champion had locked up his right front tire in that corner, sending him straight on and bringing him to a stop just before the tire barrier.

Lundgaard remained on top for a long time, but with 6.5 minutes to go in the combined session, championship leader Alex Palou went one-hundredth of a second faster. Surprisingly, Lundgaard still had more speed in the car and reclaimed first place with a tenth of a second advantage.

Lundgaard 6/1000ths faster than Palou in split session

After the combined session, soft tires were fitted for qualifying simulations in two groups during the split session. Lundgaard again proved he was quick on the softs as well: he set the fastest time in the first group – more than six-tenths of a second quicker than his best lap on the hard tires. In that first group, Felix Rosenqvist was second, with Graham Rahal in third place.

In the second group, it was no surprise that Palou recorded the fastest time, but he still fell short by 6/1000ths of a second compared to Lundgaard’s top time from the first group. David Malukas finished second in this group, with Marcus Armstrong in third. However, it appeared that the track was slightly slower for the second group; in the combined results, Malukas and Armstrong placed only sixth and seventh.

Full results of the 1st free practice session on Portland