Alex Palou during Practice 1 at the Indianapolis 500.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver set a 225.937 mph lap at the famous Brickyard, putting 0.0074s on Meyer Shank Racing’s Marcus Armstrong on a 225.895 mph lap.
Hometown hero Conor Daly was third-fastest for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing with a 225.838 mph lap.
Daly is gunning for his first Indianapolis 500 in his 13th start.
“Our car is fast. It just feels really good,” said Daly after practice.
“So just kind of driving around and working through a few small things and just tuning to kind of what I want and evaluating a few other things.
“Just a good day one. Obviously the test was good too, but this whole process is you can get swept up in it. You can get behind, and you can get a little messy.
“The wind got super gusty towards the end of the day. One set of tyres, all of a sudden I think I’m going to crash. I’m sliding around. But we quartered the left rear, so I was, like, okay, we figured that problem out. Then we put another set of tires on. All problems are solved.
“You don’t want to fall behind in kind of overreacting to things. I think that’s just kind of what our job is just go through things one step at a time, and it feels good so far.”
The six-hour practice was incident-free, though Palou started the day with a balance issue.
“It was just balance, not being super happy with it,” said Palou.
“We found something that explained what I was feeling and it was good to go back out today before we go to sleep so we can be a bit happier.
“But yeah, the car feels good now and yeah, just a shame that the session is over.
“You always want to do a lot more [laps]. We didn’t do many laps today, but still we understood a lot of stuff.
“This is a different car to what I had at the open test. So, it was very important just to see how I felt If I was confident or not. I’m feeling much better than this morning.”
Time spent in the garage reduced the Spaniard to just 28 laps of the oval. That was in stark contrast to Alexander Rossi, who completed 116 laps for Ed Carpenter Racing.
Palou’s fastest time came in the final 10 minutes of the session with a tow.
Palou’s six-time championship-winning teammate Scott Dixon was fifth, just behind Team Penske’s two-time champion and two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden.
Scott McLaughlin was eighth and just head of his Team Penske stablemate David Malukas in 10th.
“First, great to be back for the “Month of May.” Didn’t do as many laps as I probably wanted,” said McLaughlin.
“We had a couple little issues, but every time we ran the car it was on track it was super quick. Great to be back in the Yellow Submarine with Pennzoil. Chevy is feeling great.”
Will Power made a steady start to practice, logging 44 laps with a best effort of 221.455 mph to be 27th overall. He was second-fastest on the no-tow list behind Andretti Global teammate Kyle Kirkwood with a 222.062 mph lap.
Practice 2 takes place on Thursday at 3am (AEST).
Results: 110th Indianapolis 500, Practice 1
Pos
Num
Driver
Team
Best Speed
Lap
Diff
Gap
Best Lap
Laps
1
10
Alex Palou
Chip Ganassi Racing
225.937
39.8342
24
28
2
66
Marcus Armstrong
Meyer Shank w/ Curb-Agajanian
225.895
39.8416
0.0074
0.0074
15
46
3
23
Conor Daly
Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
225.838
39.8516
0.0174
0.0100
10
89
4
2
Josef Newgarden
Team Penske
225.121
39.9785
0.1443
0.1269
61
71
5
9
Scott Dixon
Chip Ganassi Racing
225.087
39.9845
0.1503
0.0060
21
61
6
15
Graham Rahal
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
224.769
40.0411
0.2069
0.0566
43
47
7
27
Kyle Kirkwood
Andretti Global w/ Curb-Agajanian
224.483
40.0922
0.2580
0.0511
28
47
8
3
Scott McLaughlin
Team Penske
224.401
40.1068
0.2726
0.0146
16
28
9
18
Romain Grosjean
Dale Coyne Racing
223.901
40.1963
0.3621
0.0895
42
58
10
12
David Malukas
Team Penske
223.845
40.2064
0.3722
0.0101
23
53
11
24
Jack Harvey
Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
223.743
40.2247
0.3905
0.0183
19
58
12
5
Pato O’Ward
Arrow McLaren
223.740
40.2252
0.3910
0.0005
5
78
13
20
Alexander Rossi
ECR
223.585
40.2531
0.4189
0.0279
36
116
14
75
Takuma Sato
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
223.426
40.2818
0.4476
0.0287
30
36
15
6
Helio Castroneves
Meyer Shank w/ Curb-Agajanian
223.332
40.2988
0.4646
0.0170
25
55
16
33
Ed Carpenter
ECR
223.297
40.3051
0.4709
0.0063
36
56
17
51
Jacob Abel
Abel Motorsports
223.155
40.3308
0.4966
0.0257
26
63
18
14
Santino Ferrucci
A.J. Foyt Enterprises
222.930
40.3714
0.5372
0.0406
28
53
19
76
Rinus VeeKay
Juncos Hollinger Racing
222.816
40.3920
0.5578
0.0206
75
82
20
8
Kyffin Simpson
Chip Ganassi Racing
222.771
40.4003
0.5661
0.0083
57
80
21
21
Christian Rasmussen
ECR
222.622
40.4272
0.593
0.0269
68
89
22
60
Felix Rosenqvist
Meyer Shank w/ Curb-Agajanian
222.608
40.4299
0.5957
0.0027
39
84
23
28
Marcus Ericsson
Andretti Global
222.304
40.4851
0.6509
0.0552
41
45
24
6
Nolan Siegel
Arrow McLaren
222.170
40.5096
0.6754
0.0245
43
82
25
77
Sting Ray Robb
Juncos Hollinger Racing
221.947
40.5502
0.7160
0.0406
45
70
26
19
Dennis Hauger
Dale Coyne Racing
221.583
40.6169
0.7827
0.0667
12
12
27
26
Will Power
Andretti Global
221.455
40.6403
0.8061
0.0234
19
44
28
7
Christian Lundgaard
Arrow McLaren
221.116
40.7027
0.8685
0.0624
32
68
29
31
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Arrow McLaren
221.037
40.7171
0.8829
0.0144
24
27
30
4
Caio Collet
A.J. Foyt Enterprises
220.906
40.7413
0.9071
0.0242
4
59
31
45
Louis Foster
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
220.819
40.7573
0.9231
0.0160
45
76
32
47
Mick Schumacher
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
220.280
40.8570
1.0228
0.0997
25
84
33
11
Katherine Legge
HMD Motorsports w/ AJ Foyt Racing
218.304
41.2269
1.3927
0.3699
29
51