2023 R7: Detroit

[John]

Bottom post of the previous page:

I miss Belle Isle.

[PTRACER]

I miss Belle Isle.

Looks more like a rally stage in places. Why on earth did they move the race to here?

[Everso Biggyballies]

Dixon quickest in second practice, DeFrancesco wrecks

Scott Dixon led the pre-qualifying practice Saturday morning on what is IMO a horrible little track.. Someone said something of it looking like a rally stage in places. Totally agree .... looks like more potholes than the Khyber Pass.

Dixon was fastest at 1 minute, 3.2317 seconds in the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. That was slightly slower than the top lap in Friday’s practice, 1:03.0773 by Pato O’Ward in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet. Dixon was second quickest Friday at 1:03.1759.

Seems like it was quite a lively session from wo to go. Traffic and getting a clean lap seems to be a headache.

Colton Herta overshot a corner on his installation lap while practicing passing Marcus Armstrong’s Chip Ganassi Racing car.

A red flag was required after only four minutes, as Indianapolis 500 winner JoNew coasted into the Turn 8 run-off and stalled while attempting a spin turn.

The second was for Rinus VeeKay (Ed Carpenter Racing) doing the exact same, and mirrored by Alex Palou (Ganassi) and Herta for the third and fourth.

The fifth red was for an altogether different reason, as DeFrancesco pounded the Turn 7 wall head-on, smashing the nose and right-side of his Andretti car against the concrete wall. The impact was hard enough to shift one of the concrete blocks.

“Just lost the rear through [Turns] 6 and 7, definitely annoying ahead of qualifying,” he said.

Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti) set the early pace at 1m03.5658s, but his time was beaten by Dixon’s 1m03.2317s for Ganassi with 15 minutes to go.

After the lengthy red for DeFrancesco’s shunt, the session restarted with less than 10 minutes remaining..... with so many cars on track, finding a clear lap was almost impossible.

Will Power managed to go P2 with 1m03.4627s, but then half spun into a tyre stack. He finished the session a tenth ahead of Kirkwood.

Palou was fourth, almost half a second down on his pacesetting team-mate, ahead of Scott McLaughlin ( Penske), Romain Grosjean (Andretti), who also improved late on), Pato O’Ward (Arrow McLaren), Armstrong and Callum Ilott (Juncos).

A single stack of tyres has been removed from the exit of Turn 1 to allow more space for drivers to run closer to the wall and increase the minimum corner speed.


Detroit
Practice 2
Saturday, June 3, 2023
RANK DRIVER CAR NO. BEST TIME IN LAP BEST SPEED TOTAL LAPS DIFFERENCE GAP
1 Scott Dixon 9 01:03.2317 15 93.656 24 --.---- --.----
2 Will Power 12 01:03.4627 27 93.315 27 0.2310 0.2310
3 Kyle Kirkwood 27 01:03.5658 7 93.163 29 0.3341 0.1031
4 Alex Palou 10 01:03.7165 9 92.943 24 0.4848 0.1507
5 Scott McLaughlin 3 01:03.7166 26 92.943 33 0.4849 0.0001
6 Romain Grosjean 28 01:03.7251 24 92.930 24 0.4934 0.0085
7 Pato O'Ward 5 01:03.7732 7 92.860 23 0.5415 0.0481
8 Marcus Armstrong 11 01:03.8105 11 92.806 31 0.5788 0.0373
9 Callum Ilott 77 01:04.0307 16 92.487 25 0.7990 0.2202
10 Simon Pagenaud 60 01:04.0399 16 92.474 27 0.8082 0.0092
11 Agustin Canapino 78 01:04.1445 26 92.323 26 0.9128 0.1046
12 David Malukas 18 01:04.1853 8 92.264 23 0.9536 0.0408
13 Rinus VeeKay 21 01:04.2775 8 92.132 27 1.0458 0.0922
14 Alexander Rossi 7 01:04.4716 17 91.854 25 1.2399 0.1941
15 Christian Lundgaard 45 01:04.6424 28 91.612 28 1.4107 0.1708
16 Devlin DeFrancesco 29 01:04.7144 16 91.510 19 1.4827 0.0720
17 Graham Rahal 15 01:04.7706 18 91.430 27 1.5389 0.0562
18 Helio Castroneves 06 01:04.8019 9 91.386 28 1.5702 0.0313
19 Marcus Ericsson 8 01:04.8610 15 91.303 22 1.6293 0.0591
20 Benjamin Pedersen 55 01:04.9296 18 91.206 26 1.6979 0.0686
21 Josef Newgarden 2 01:04.9341 15 91.200 22 1.7024 0.0045
22 Felix Rosenqvist 6 01:04.9592 8 91.165 26 1.7275 0.0251
23 Santino Ferrucci 14 01:05.1150 17 90.947 26 1.8833 0.1558
24 Jack Harvey 30 01:05.1786 8 90.858 29 1.9469 0.0636
25 Sting Ray Robb 51 01:05.3260 24 90.653 24 2.0943 0.1474
26 Conor Daly 20 01:05.4402 26 90.495 26 2.2085 0.1142
27 Colton Herta 26 01:06.6209 20 88.891 20 3.3892 1.1807

[John]

This circuit is a fucken tragedy. Just to be closer to the GM HQ.

[John]

Herta out. Rossi out.

Herta binned it of course.

[John]

Kirkwood next driver to smack the wall. Tomorrow's race will be a mess.

[John]

Flavor Flav spotted.

[John]

Palou
McLaughlin
RoGro
Dixon
JoNew
Marcus
----
P10: Pato

[John]

[Cheeveer]

What a bad race track. Hope the race will be intriguing at least.

[John]

OK, let's try this. First start waved off.

[John]

And yellow as Ilott goes piggy backing on some other backmarker.

Edit: Kirkwood

[erwin greven]

What a bad race track. Hope the race will be intriguing at least.

This afternoon i saw the Trans Am race at this "track". Really it made me to want to see the Indycar race. Grabbing the popcorn.

[John]

Palou sprinting away with the first stint and will be able to ditch the green compound after this stint. Looking super strong.

18 laps in and as usual leaps and bounds ahead of the F1 race.

[John]

Circuit still sucks.

[John]

Power looking super racey.