INDIANAPOLIS — Graham Rahal and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing picked up on Friday where they left off here on the road course configuration in May. Rahal topped the 90 minute NTT INDYCAR SERIES practice session on Friday morning with a top lap of 1:09.8421-seconds in his No. 15 Dallara-Honda.

The Ohio native started on the front row at his home race (Mid-Ohio) last month and put his car on Row 4 for May’s GMR Grand Prix.

His teammate, Christian Lundgaard (1:10.1246-seconds) was on the pole here in May and P3 on Friday morning. The Danish driver enters this weekend having scored a pole in Toronto as long as a win there too.

Here at Indy specifically, Lundgaard has qualified 4th, 8th, 6th and 1st.

Jack Harvey was P12 in his No. 30 Dallara-Honda but faces a 6 spot grid penalty for an engine change.

Arrow McLaren Racing was the other team up top to start the day in going 2-4-8. They had 3 of the top 5 finishers here in May including 2 of the 3 podium spots.

Felix Rosenqvist (1:09.9267-seconds) led the way among the camp in his No. 6 Dallara-Chevrolet. Rosenqivst has started on the front row here in 2 straight starts.

Alexander Rossi (1:10.1333-seconds) was P4 in his No. 7 Dallara-Chevrolet while Pato O’Ward was 8th.

May’s winner, Alex Palou (1:10.1965-seconds) was the only other driver in the top five in his No. 10 Dallara-Honda. Palou qualified 4th, 4th, 6th, 2nd, 7th and 3rd respectively here.

Championship front runners were behind Palou with Scott McLaughlin (4th in points) Scott Dixon (3rd in points) and Marcus Ericsson (5th in points) being 6th, 7th and 9th respectively. 2nd in points, Josef Newgarden, was a disappointing 24th.

Some drivers experienced some problems in this session. Ericsson cut his session just short with some brake problems. Rinus VeeKay told us he had some vibration problems on his end. O’Ward spun in Turn 13 while David Malukas got off track in the final seconds.

Final Practice

With Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske being shutout of the Fast Six a few hours prior, they came out with a vengeance in the 30-minute final practice session. They went 1-2-3 with the Chip Ganassi Racing tandem of Alex Palou (1:10.9851-seconds) and Scott Dixon (1:11.1365-seconds) being first and second respectively.

Palou used the warmup session back in May to propel him to a win on the same 2.439-mile road course a few hours later. This weekend, the warmup session was moved to Friday due to a heavy flurry of NASCAR track activity on Saturday morning.

Does he use this session on Friday to help him win on Saturday?

He’ll start eighth after being P5 in practice on Friday morning too.

Dixon will come from 15th. He was P7 in the morning practice.

Scott McLaughlin (1:11.3073-seconds) was third in the incident free session while Callum Ilott (1:11.4315-seconds) and Kyle Kirkwood (1:11.4655-seconds) rounded out the top five.

Pole sitter Graham Rahal (1:11.8863-seconds) was 17th, .9012-seconds behind Dixon. Christian Lundgaard was 11th (1:11.6714-seconds), a gap of .6863-seconds.