Herta, the current points leader in the IndyCar Series championship, delivered flying lap of 1m09.2863s on a set of softer alternates to set the quickest time on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.439-mile, 14-turn road course layout.
The quick lap set by Herta came with less than three minutes remaining in the 75-minute practice, bumping the feel-good story of Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Agustin Canapino from the top spot by 0.0850s.
Team Penske’s Will Power, Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay and Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson rounded out the rest of the top five.
After setting the initial fastest time in the early running, with a lap of 1m09.8152s on a set of harder primary rubber, Josef Newgarden brought out the first red flag after his No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet spun and stalled in Turn 14 in the opening 15 minutes.
Another red flag came returned 10 minutes later after Graham Rahal’s No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda stopped on track near the pit exit; he reported “something isn’t right… it’s letting go” over the radio before being towed back to the garage area.
Shortly after the session resumed, a massive plume of smoke erupted on pit lane with 45 minutes left in the session as the rear end of Marcus Armstrong’s No. 11 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda was on fire. Like Rahal’s, it was a brand new engine for this event.
“I felt a bit of a vibration,” Armstrong said. “They didn’t see anything on the data, but you know when there’s something not right, so I just boxed.
“I think we may have saved it. If I kept going, we wouldn’t have had a fire extinguisher or anything out there.”
Rahal provided his perspective on his engine problems shortly after Armstrong’s assessment.
“Yeah, I think I just caught it before him frankly because I heard it coming out of (Turn) 13 right away,” Rahal said. “I did like one up shift and I just, I clutched right away because I could tell. But we’ll see. These are new engines. We’ve got to see what the issues are.”
Armstrong’s team elected for an engine change before the end of practice, with Rahal’s team mulling on doing the same.
Once the cloud of smoke settled on pit road and the session continued, it was VeeKay that vaulted to first with 26 minutes to go with a 1m09.7872s lap to dethrone Newgarden on a set of primaries.
Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward then equipped a set of softer alternates and went P1 with 14 minutes to go with a 1m09.7199s lap.
The flood of times began to come in as the softer alternates saw a rotation of the top spot as the likes of Scott McLaughlin, VeeKay, Power and Canapino went quickest before Herta settled it in the final moments.
To round out the engine issues, the Chevrolet in Theo Pourchaire’s Arrow McLaren entry also appeared to expire in the closing moments, causing him to pull off the track.
