CGR Opens Barber Weekend with Three Top-10s in Practice 1

Dixon, Ericsson, Palou Start Barber Weekend with Top-10s in Practice 1

Chip Ganassi Racing began race weekend number four of the NTT INDYCAR Series in impressive fashion, placing three drivers in the top-10 on Practice 1. Scott Dixon and the No. 9 PNC Bank car claimed P4 with a lap time of 1:06:9345, current championship series leader Marcus Ericsson was P5, 2021 Barber race winner Alex Palou finished P10 and series rookie Marcus Armstrong crossed the line in 17th. Less than six tenths of a second separated all four Chip Ganassi Racing Hondas.

CGR will return to the track for a second practice session tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. ET before Saturday’s qualifying round from 3:00 – 4:15 p.m. ET. Coverage is available on Peacock for both Saturday sessions.

Scott Dixon
No. 9 PNC Bank Honda“The second run was pretty good, we got caught up in some red flags, so we didn’t get a clean run on the first one, but second run we went to the top of the charts on the black tires which was really good. I think we were 1, 2, 3, for the team which was pretty good and then we had some cautions, a couple of changes, and then went out with the reds with literally 3 or 4 minutes to go. The car has great speed so hopefully we can continue that through the weekend.”

Marcus Ericsson
No. 8 Huski Chocolate Honda
“The car feels good. I think we’re all off strong again, the Ganassi cars and the team have done a good job. We went through some setup changes that we wanted to complete and then we got on the reds there at the end, which is always fun. We’re in the mix.”

Alex Palou
No. 10 Ridgeline Lubricants Honda
“Barber is such a good place – I love driving an Indycar around here. It was good – it was really productive, tested a lot of stuff but still lots of work to do tomorrow in practice 2, getting it ready for qualifying. Things looking good so far.”

Marcus Armstrong
No. 11 American Legion Honda
“The session was good at the beginning – towards the end it was the old classic traffic jam but it was okay. I guess we just circulated, we got through some test items and practice makes perfect doesn’t it? So just trying to get those laps in, hopefully tomorrow is a bit cleaner.”