Kirkwood leads Palou in opening practice at St. Petersburg
02/28/2025 05:45 PM
Practice opened for the 2025 season Friday at St. Petersburg and over the 75-minutes, Kyle Kirkwood emerged as the fastest of the 27 entries in his No. 27 Honda with a lap of 1m00.441s.
The Andretti Global driver, a double race winner in 2023 on street circuits, paced the field from the first of the 10-minute special sessions where half of the drivers have the track to themselves to perform qualifying simulations on Firestone's faster alternate tires.
"We obviously got better as the session progressed," Kirkwood said. "We’ve always been really good on street courses, but I think we needed to get some things a little bit better at road courses and ovals. Nashville (Speedway in 2024) was impeccable. We were amazing around there, so I hope this is just a continuation of what we ended the season like last year and hopefully it puts us in a place true contenders in the championship."
Prior to that session, Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou led the main outing, a 45-minute affair for all cars, with a 1m01.211s in the No. 10 Honda.
Closing the afternoon under warm and blue skies, Andretti's Colton Herta topped the second half of the field with a 01m01.060s lap in the No. 28 Honda, giving the Japanese brand the fastest drivers in all three segments.
A few dramas occurred as the Meyer Shank Racing Synchronized Spinning Team executed two amazing 360-degree spins in Turn 3, first with Felix Rosenqvist who completed the full rotation, didn't make any contact and kept going. New teammate Marcus Armstrong wasn't able to finish and continue; he stalled facing backward, but stopped just short of tapping the wall. His retrieval required the lone red flag of the day.
The afternoon ended with Scott McLaughlin hitting the wall exiting Turn 3 just as the clock wound down to zero. The Team Penske driver's No. 3 Chevy will need some new suspension components, but the car and driver should be on track for Saturday morning's 10 a.m. ET practice session.
