Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou, in the No.10 The American Legion can win the NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship on Sunday in Portland if he ends the race 54 points ahead of his teammate Scott Dixon, who ended the opening day of action at Portland International Raceway in third place and speaking after setting a time of 00:58.3555s the Spaniard said:
“I’m very happy to be back here; it’s a track that we really like. Had a ton of fun, got a lot of laps in and the car was really fast from the beginning. We’ll need to work a little bit more on the alternates, but so far this is a really good start.”
Marcus Ericsson in the No.8 Huski Iced Spritz Honda was 12th fastest with a time of 00:58.8507s and speaking following the action the Swede said:
“I think it was a decent day. We went through our program in practice, dialing in the car to the track. Then we got to run in some of the turns, which was quite interesting. I think it was different to what we’ve seen here in the past. We’ve got some work overnight, but we started off in a decent place which is always positive. Looking forward to the rest of the weekend.”
Marcus Armstrong in the No.11 Ridgeline Lubricants Honda ended the day in 13th place with a time of 00:58.9347s and speaking following the action he commented saying:
“Today was okay, and I spent time to learn the track obviously. We had quite good pace on the primaries but need to work to find some improvement on the alternates. I’m still learning the track, but the car is in a good spot.”
Scott Dixon in the No.9 PNC Bank Honda had a difficult session as he ended the day in 19th place with a time of 00:59.0457s speaking following the action he commented saying:
“The car was pretty quick out of the box. I think we were top-three and then we had a bit of a misbalance on the mechanical side. When we went to the reds, caught a load of traffic and then on my good lap I almost spun in turn six and that was it. The PNC Bank Honda has speed, now we just need to put a lap together.”