Andretti and HMD drivers brimming with confidence after Gateway test

Photo: Chris Jones

Indy Lights’ two top teams were closely matched in the pre-event test day at the Gateway oval ahead of this Saturday’s race.

Testing took place last Friday and featured 12 cars, with the TJ Speed team absent and James Roe Jr remaining with HMD Motorsports after moving to the team for the last round in Nashville. He is set to race for HMD again this weekend.

Fastest in both the morning and the afternoon session was HMD with Global Racing Group’s Benjamin Pedersen, who set a 28.0873s lap (with an average speed of 160.158mph) in the morning and then a 28.1326s best effort in the afternoon.

He was one of only three drivers to set their fastest lap in the earlier session, which was held in cooler and slightly grippier conditions, but his session-topping time from the afternoon was also good enough to put him number one overall for the day.

Pedersen described the opening action as a “great morning”, having gone fastest by just over a tenth of a second, then with his run plan in the afternoon felt he had “checked off a lot of items” ahead of the race weekend.

Andretti’s Christian Rasmussen was second fastest in the afternoon and overall, and despite doing 100 laps in the second session his best laptime came in the opening minutes of him being on track as his fourth lap ended up being his fastest.

Similarly, team-mate Sting Ray Robb set 99 laps but peaked on his seventh lap of the afternoon. Robb was ninth fastest overall.

“We’ve had a good day here, ended up second quicket overall and we just really have a really good car under us,” Rasmussen reflected. “I think we’re pretty good set for the race, so I’m looking forward to next weekend and ready to get after it.”

HMD’s Danial Frost was third fastest overall and like Pedersen set his fastest lap in the morning, with Hunter McElrea (Andretti), championship leader Linus Lundqvist (HMD) and Roe completing a top six covered by less than 0.15s.

Test results