Arrow McLaren had a great start to their Long Beach weekend as they had three cars in the top ten in the opening practice session ahead of Sunday’s race. Pato O’Ward led the way with a fastest time of 01:06.6999s while Alexander Rossi ended the day in seventh place with a 01:07.1572s while Felix Rosenqvist was 9th fastest with a time of 01:07.3135s
Speaking following the session, Gavin Ward, Race Director with Arrow McLaren, commented saying:
“That’s a great start to the weekend for the team. Pato obviously finished the session fastest. With these practice sessions, you have to take everything with a grain of salt because a lot of people get their laps messed up. We’ll try to weed through the data to see how good we are, but we’re pretty confident we had three top-10 cars today, as it showed with the timing. We’ve learned a few things which we’ll carry into the rest of the weekend, but overall it’s just fun to be here, see the crowd and all of the papaya support.”
Pato O’Ward in the No.5 Arrow Mclaren commented saying:
“It’s a tight field. Long Beach always is. We just kept chipping at it today. We rolled off strong, but we definitely made adjustments to get it a little bit more in the window, a bit more to this track’s characteristics and to what I like. So far, it’s good and we’re going to look to see where we can make improvements. I think we’re in good shape for tomorrow. It’s all about executing; it’s going to be really, really tough.”
Alexander Rossi commented saying:
”It was a really good first session. It’s just small adjustments from here on out. This is two weekends in a row now where the car has rolled off in the window. It’s always a pleasure when that happens. Now, it’s just about fine-tuning, keeping up with the track and executing to hopefully be fighting for a win on Sunday.”
Felix Rosenqvist commented saying:
”That’s the first practice done here at Long Beach. It’s always hectic with lots of cars on a small track, so there was a lot of traffic. But I thought overall we were good. As a team, we covered the top nine, and Pato was quickest, which is promising for the weekend ahead. It’s still early, and we have a lot of stuff to go through, but overall I’m happy.”