De Alba tops Indy Nxt’s Iowa practice, Murray absent through injury

Photo: Aaron Skillman

Andretti Global’s Salvador de Alba topped Indy Nxt’s truncated practice session at Iowa Speedway on Friday.

There was due to be 45 minutes of running, but the chequered flag was waved five minutes early during the second yellow flag period of the day.

De Alba jumped to the top of the order in the second half of practice by lapping in 19.4445 seconds at an average speed of 165.517mph. That was 10mph slower than what Indy Nxt drivers were achieving around Iowa a month ago, due to a decision by IndyCar to reduce engine power for this weekend.

The cause of the second yellow flag period was rain hitting the circuit with 13 minutes left on the clock. Once the shower had passed, there was not enough time for the track to dry and enable any further running to take place.

De Alba had also been the first driver to hit the top of the times, before points-leading team-mate Dennis Hauger moved ahead. Hauger lowered the benchmark in the first 20 minutes, improving to 19.4969s.

A brief yellow flag period caused by Abel Motorsports’ Jordan Missig spinning, and once green flags waved again his Abel stablemate Myles Rowe jumped up the order. He first rose to second place, just behind Hauger, before setting a lap 0.04s quicker than him.

Rowe remained at the top until just before the wet weather came, when de Alba went quickest by 0.0114s. He ended the session second, ahead of Hauger and Andretti Cape’s Ricardo Escotto.

Hauger’s title rivals Lochie Hughes (Andretti Global) and Caio Collet (HMD Motorsports) were fifth and sixth, both within 0.2s of de Alba, and completing a top 10 spread out by less than a third of a second was Neils Koolen (Chip Ganassi Racing), James Roe Jr (Andretti Global), test pacesetter Josh Pierson (HMD) and Callum Hedge (Abel).

Andretti Cape only had one car on track, as Seb Murray was not cleared by IndyCar’s medical team to return to the cockpit.

Murray and Escotto collided in last weekend’s race at Mid-Ohio and it was initially believed that Murray was uninjured. However he actually picked up a concussion, and after heading to Iowa and then being screened by IndyCar’s medical team he was not cleared for a return to the cockpit. The decision was made a few hours before practice began.

Cape Motorsports provided further detail, saying Murray’s symptoms had “worsened throughout the week”.

Free practice results