By Josh Farmer
FORT WORTH – Scott Dixon set the bar high early as he paced today’s lone practice for qualifying for the Rainguard Water Sealers 600 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Aided by a tow and running a qualifying aero setup, the driver of the No. 9 NTT Data Honda logged a lap of 23.2027 seconds (223.422 mph) with just a few minutes remaining in the session. The lap stands as the quickest lap logged at TMS since 2003 and was a clear .1633s faster than Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Charlie Kimball (No. 83 Tresiba Honda).
Dixon was pleased with the pace of his car but noted that getting the right race setup is going to be more beneficial than qualifying.
“I think all of the Ganassi cars are quick,” he said. “We’ll have to see what happens in qualifying. It’s Texas – qualifying isn’t going to mean much. We’ll have to have a car good over a long stint, look after the tires especially with the track configuration change.”
Honda dominated the session as Alexander Rossi (No. 98 Andretti Autosport) was third, just .0574s off Kimball. Defending race winner Graham Rahal (No. 15 PennGrade Motor Oil Honda) was fourth.
He was followed by Andretti Autosport teammates Marco Andretti in fifth and Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato in sixth.
Rounding out the top ten were Ed Carpenter (No. 20 Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolet) in seventh, Will Power (No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet) in eighth, Tony Kanaan (No. 10 NTT Data) in ninth and Josef Newgarden (No. 2 Hum by Verizon) was tenth.
Qualifying for tomorrow’s race is set to begin at 3:15 local time and can be viewed on the NBCSN Live App and on the Advance Auto Parts IndyCar radio network.
