While the top of the chart didn’t change at the first Thermal practice, the team that ended the day second, third, and fourth showed that testing paid off handsomely.

Alex Palou had the fastest lap in the two-tiered practice session, with Kyle Kirkwood right on his heels. Kirkwood’s Andretti teammates Marcus Ericsson and Colton Herta were third and fourth. Andretti has tested at Thermal earlier this year.

Kirkwood led the 45 minute segment which was shortened when Robert Shwartzman stopped his burning car on track about halfway through the timed period.

Shwartzman’s fire appeared to be from a fuel leak. The AMR safety team took the car apart on the track, even removing the driver’s seat. He will use the backup car tomorrow. Shwartzman had an issue in St. Pete as well. The rookie has lost a lot of valuable track time in the young season.

The first small group session also had a red flag stoppage when Devlin DeFrancesco got stuck in the sand off course.

David Malukas and Felix Rosenqvist had excursions off track, but they were able to continue.

Notes

As expected, tire strategy will be key on Sunday. The primaries looked really shredded after the few laps run today.

FOX

FOX had a timing and scoring graphics issue as practice began., but it was corrected.

The telemetry dash still blocks the sponsors on the aeroscreen frame, but I did notice that the graphic stayed on for a shorter time, and the sponsors got a bit of time, probably not enough.

The driver pictures looked like paintings instead of the cartoons three weeks ago. It is an improvement, but I wonder if FOX has heard of these things called photographs.

I liked the ghost car graphic comparing Will Power and Rosenqvist on a lap. I hope to see more of that during qualifying.

The best thing on the broadcast was the cutaway going inside the cockpit into the interior of the nose to explain brake bias. It was the best thing I have seen from the broadcast partner. More, please.

Results