By Steve Wittich
The seven Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires entries began their lone practice session at 9:15 AM. When the checkered flag fell at 10 PM, it ended two straight hours of Mazda Road To Indy Presented by Cooper Tires action to begin the Kohler Grand Prix weekend.
With carry-over tires from the test at Road America, last week drivers did not use fresh sets of Cooper Tire slicks, instead of saving them for qualifying.
At the one-third point of the 45-minute session, Wisconsin born driver Aaron Telitz had the quickest lap with Patricio O’Ward, Santi Urrutia, Colton Herta and Victor Franzoni making up the rest of the top five.
With two-thirds of the session complete, O’Ward had taken over the top spot on the timesheet. The five quickest drivers were all within a half-second of the Andretti Autosport rookie.
The ADVANCE Auto Parts Radio network reported that drivers were trying out differing downforce levels and shock adjustments in an attempt to find more pace. Urrutia explained that the track was quite a bit different than the track was during their test on the 4.014-mile, 14-turn natural terrain road course last week.
Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires practice #1 timesheet
RANK | CAR NO. | DRIVER | QUICK LAP | DIFFERENCE | TOTAL LAPS |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 27 | Pato O’Ward | 1:53.781 | –.—- | 14 |
2 | 9 | Aaron Telitz | 1:53.876 | 0.0954 | 14 |
3 | 98 | Colton Herta | 1:54.049 | 0.2676 | 15 |
4 | 23 | Victor Franzoni | 1:54.234 | 0.4532 | 15 |
5 | 5 | Santi Urrutia | 1:54.358 | 0.5775 | 14 |
6 | 28 | Dalton Kellett | 1:54.686 | 0.9054 | 14 |
7 | 48 | Ryan Norman | 1:55.205 | 1.4237 | 17 |
Don’t miss any of the action:
- live timing – Indy Lights, Pro Mazda, USF2000, and IndyCar Race Control
- on twitter –Indy Lights, Pro Mazda, USF2000, Cooper Tire, Mazda Racing and TSO Ladder
- via the Road To Indy TV app – Android or Apple iOS
- on all social media channels via the #TeamCooperTire and #MRTI hashtags
Indy Lights will be back on track at 4:55 PM for the first qualifying session.