The first, and only practice for the Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tire series was led by Belardi Auto Racing veteran driver Shelby Blackstock. The Barber Motorsports Park event is “home race” of sorts for Blackstock, who is originally from Nashville, Tenn., and also spends a lot of time at the 2.3-mile, 17 Turn road course as instructor for the Barber based Porsche Sport Driving School.
Rounding out the top five in practice were Garth Rickards (Carlin), Zachary Claman DeMelo (Carlin), Kyle Kaiser (Juncos Racing) and points leader Colton Herta (Andretti-Steinbrenner Racing).
All 15 drivers were within one-second of Blackstock, in a session that saw varying tire strategies. (We’ll try and find these out and send them out in a notebook a little later this afternoon.)
Full practice results
RANK | CAR # | DRIVER | TEAM | QUICK LAP | GAP |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 51 | Shelby Blackstock | Belardi Auto Racing | 1:15.150 | — |
2 | 11 | Garth Rickards | Carlin | 1:15.203 | 0.0532 |
3 | 13 | Zachary Claman De Melo | Carlin | 1:15.308 | 0.1585 |
4 | 18 | Kyle Kaiser | Juncos Racing | 1:15.424 | 0.2737 |
5 | 98 | Colton Herta | Andretti Steinbrenner Racing | 1:15.442 | 0.2920 |
6 | 22 | Neil Alberico | Carlin | 1:15.548 | 0.3979 |
7 | 26 | Matheus Leist | Carlin | 1:15.570 | 0.4204 |
8 | 27 | Nico Jamin | Andretti Autosport | 1:15.573 | 0.4233 |
9 | 3 | Pato O’Ward | Team Pelfrey | 1:15.636 | 0.4867 |
10 | 5 | Santi Urrutia | Belardi Auto Racing | 1:15.725 | 0.5755 |
11 | 9 | Aaron Telitz | Belardi Auto Racing | 1:15.759 | 0.6093 |
12 | 28 | Dalton Kellett | Andretti Autosport | 1:15.767 | 0.6169 |
13 | 31 | Nicolas Dapero | Juncos Racing | 1:15.852 | 0.7020 |
14 | 48 | Ryan Norman | Andretti Autosport | 1:16.117 | 0.9668 |
15 | 2 | Juan Piedrahita | Team Pelfrey | 1:16.264 | 1.1140 |
Qualifying for the first Indy Lights race is scheduled for an early 8:40am start on Saturday morning, and Race #1 will roll off at 2pm.