Abel lays down a marker in Indy Nxt FP1 at Barber Motorsports Park

Photo: Chris Owens

Abel Motorsports’ Jacob Abel set an ominously fast pace in the first Indy Nxt practice session at Barber Motorsports Park.

He was on top for much of the 45-minute session, and ended it with a gap of 0.5158 seconds to second place.

Most drivers went a run of several laps early on that ended with a push lap where they tried to improve their pace, and after 15 minutes it was Abel who led the way with a 1m13.1028s.

HMD Motorsports duo Reece Gold and Caio Collet were both within 0.2s of him, with Andretti Global’s James Roe Jr 0.2957s behind in fourth. All four were in the pits a third of the way through FP1, with drivers who had started their first runs later than them still out on track but unable to get near their pace.

Roe and HMD’s Nolan Siegel knocked Abel down to third when they headed out on their second runs, with Roe setting a 1m12.8750s and Siegel going just 0.0205s slower than him.

Callum Hedge left the pits for the first time in the session’s second half, with a potential battery issue in his HMD-run car the cause of his absence prior to that.

There was drama with 13 minutes to go as Andretti’s Louis Foster came to a stop on track with an electrical problem. That led to red flags being waved, and action did not restart until the final six-and-a-half minutes.

Everyone bar Foster headed back out, and Abel lowered the pace by 0.4846s with just over three minutes left on the clock. Roe crossed the line not long after and could only reduce Abel’s advantage by 0.0026s.

HMD’s Myles Rowe went sixth fastest with one-and-a-half minutes left on the clock, but was a second off the pace, then Abel improved to 1m12.2001s with 48s to go.

Roe’s response brought the gap back down to 0.3147s, and HMD’s Josh Pierson got within 0.9424s of Abel in fourth.

Andretti Cape’s Michael d’Orland rose to sixth in the final 20s, then even more improvements came in after the chequered flag.

Abel – who was running used tyres on his final run – set a new 1m11.9990s benchmark, Andretti’s Bryce Aron went fourth fastest with a lap 1.116s off the pace, and team-mate Jamie Chadwick was just 0.0084s slower than him as she jumped to sixth.

Yuven Sundaramoorthy was last to cross the line and climbed to 10th place, 1.426s slower than his pace-setting team-mate.

Free practice 1 results