Alex Palou posted the fastest time in the first practice session for the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey at Laguna Seca. The already-crowned champion set the fastest time in the first group, before Felix Rosenqvist came close in the second group, but fell just short. Pato O’Ward ended the day third, ahead of Scott McLaughlin.

Incident-filled combined portion of practice

The session got off to a difficult start for Josef Newgarden, who went too wide through Turn 6 after just ten minutes, hit the gravel and spun at high speed. The Team Penske driver was eventually able to continue, but the session had to be stopped for the first time.

After 15 minutes of practice, Felix Rosenqvist became the first driver to break into the 1:11's, before Alex Palou went 22 thousandths of a second faster shortly afterward. His time would remain at the top of the leaderboard until the end of the combined part of the session.

The combined part had to be ended early with two minutes remaining after Santino Ferrucci crashed. The AJ Foyt Racing driver had a moment of oversteer through Turn 9, then overcorrected and went through the gravel trap into the tire barriers. Despite the contact with the tire barriers, damage to the #14 car was relatively minor.

At the same time, Scott Dixon had a moment after running wide and partly entering the gravel trap. It was already the second incident of the session for the driver, who will make his final race start for Ganassi this weekend; he had spun in Turn 1 earlier in the session.

Palou ended the combined portion as the fastest driver, ahead of Rosenqvist and Pato O’Ward.

Palou also quick on the alternate tires

After the combined part of practice, the field was split into two groups for two short sessions in which qualifying simulations could be run. Running on the softer tires, Palou was the first driver in the opening group to break into the 1:10's, posting a 1:09.899. He was a remarkable 0.477 seconds faster than every other driver in the group. Teammate Kyffin Simpson posted the second-fastest time, ahead of Graham Rahal in third.

In the second group, Rosenqvist became the second driver to break into the 1:10's, but came up just nine hundredths of a second short of Palou’s time. The gaps in this group were much smaller than in the first group, although O’Ward in second was still two-tenths of a second off the fastest time.

With Rosenqvist falling short in the second group, Palou ended the day as the fastest driver – both on the harder and the softer tires. It sends an important message to the competition, if they weren’t already sufficiently warned by the fact that the Spaniard has never finished off the podium at Laguna Seca!

Full results of the 1st free practice session on Laguna Seca