Scott McLaughlin topped the opening Practice session for the PPG 375 at Texas Motor Speedway with a 223.747mph lap ahead of Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward and Alex Rossi.
Colton Herta ended up in fourth place for Andretti as Devlin DeFrancesco rounded out the top five.
At the green light, a flurry of cars left the pit lane and joined the circuit to gather valuable track time in first practice at Texas Motor Speedway.
Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, who won at Texas last year, went to the top of the timesheets early on with a 47.5340.
This was quickly beaten by Dutchman Rinus VeeKay, he drove to a 46.5380 on the 1.500 mile oval.
Chip Ganassi driver Alex Palou set the first representative time of the one hour session with a 23.6322 before being usurped by American driver David Malukas.
Ten minutes into the session, McLaughlin held the quickest time with a 223.747mph for Team Penske as the times continued to tumble.
Herta slotted into second place and set a 223.026 as the track continued to rubber in.
Takuma Sato, who is in for Marcus Armstrong at Chip Ganassi this weekend drove at 222.283mph to go fifth quickest ahead of Newgarden.
Further down the order, Marcus Ericsson sat in P16 as he produced a quiet start to the session for Chip Ganassi.
Will Power broke into the top 10 with a 221.194mph lap 20 minutes into the session. McLaughlin continued to top the timesheets ahead of Arrow McLaren SP’s O’Ward and Rossi.
The session continued error-free with all 28 drivers gathering valuable data at the first oval event of the campaign.
Scott Dixon improved to sixth place with 20 minutes remaining for Chip Ganassi with a 222.294mph just before Sato broke into the top five on his return to the NTT IndyCar Series.
Andretti’s Romain Grosjean languished down in 24th place with a best lap time of 218.390mph with 15 minutes to go.
New Zealander McLaughlin continued to hold the quickest time ahead of O’Ward and Arrow McLaren SP’s Felix Rosenqvist improved to fifth place and an average lap speed of 222.913mph.
British driver Callum Ilott’s 219.064 was good enough for P22 for Juncos Hollinger Racing as the session came to a close in Texas.
Santino Ferrucci sat in tenth place for A.J. Foyt ahead of some esteemed company in Palou and Power.
Ilott launched himself into sixth place in a very impressive 222.885mph lap with four minutes remaining in the session.
In the closing stages of the session, DeFrancesco jumped to fifth place for Andretti with a 223.225mph and slotted in ahead of Rosenqvist and Ilott.
