Palou Leads IndyCar Testing at Sebring

Reigning IndiCar champion Alex Palu led the 15-car test at Sebring where he took less than a second off the field. Palou showed off the new livery on his Ganassi machine for the upcoming season, which begins next week at St. Petersburg began. His fastest lap at the Florida track was 52.0883 seconds.

“Right now we don’t have as many test days as we would like,” says Palou, who has completed 70 laps. “We always want to have a lot of testing days, honestly, that’s really important when we’re only a week and a half away from St. Pete. We want to go through a lot of the engineering stuff that we’ve been thinking about all off-season. We won’t have enough time, but that is a way to shake the rust off the driver, the whole team, and try to get some ideas for St. Pete.”

Christian Lundgaard was second fastest for RLL, less than two-hundredths of a second behind the two-time champion. Josef Newgarden, Palu’s 2023 title rival, was third for Penske, also less than a tenth of a second behind Palu.

Drivers have a lighter IndiCar chassis for the first races of the year, as the Dallara DV12 has undergone a weight reduction program ahead of the integration of hybrid power units later this year.

“I don’t think the cars will be much different, but they are a little bit lighter, and the lap times will probably only marginally reflect that,” Newgarden said. “Don’t expect a big jump, but there will be some impact. I think for all of us, we’re preparing for a season in two halves. Are you going to start the year one way, and then we’ll adjust to a hybrid change? I think it’s on everyone’s mind . We have to be strong at the start of the season and we have to be strong as we adapt to the hybrid system, which is a challenge in motorsport. You always face obstacles and this will be a big challenge this year.