Kyffin Simpson tops first Indy Nxt practice at Road America

Photo: James Black

A late lap followed by a red flag allowed HMD Motorsports’ Kyffin Simpson to top Indy Nxt’s first practice session at a faster, resurfaced Road America circuit.

The resurfacing of the track removed some critical bumps and increased the grip, which led to considerably faster laptimes compared to the 2022 round. In fact, the whole field had already beaten Sting Ray Robb’s pole position time from 2022 halfway through FP1.

Abel Motorsports’ Jacob Abel was the first driver to set a representative laptime seven minutes into the 45-minute session. His 1m54.1618s was just 0.1875 seconds slower than Robb’s pole.

One lap later, Andretti Autosport’s Hunter McElrea lowered the benchmark to 1m52.7492s, an effort Abel would better by another second-and-a-half straight away.

Most drivers returned to the pitlane to make car adjustments after completing a short opening run of around five laps.

The track was busy again with 25 minutes remaining on the clock. Several drivers improved their pace, but no one could beat Abel’s 1m51.2583s from his first run.

A handful of drivers ran off the track and onto the grass run-off area at turn seven as they started to push the limits. However, they rejoined safely and no yellow flags were needed.

Abel’s team-mate Colin Kaminsky moved up to the top with a 1m51.0475s set 15 minutes before the end. Abel also improved on his previous benchmark by one-and-a-half tenths of a second to sit 0.0597 seconds behind Kaminsky.

Simpson claimed top spot in the final six minutes as he set a 1m50.2468s. He went even faster the following lap, laying down a 1m49.6479s benchmark.

Red flags were out with under three minutes remaining to recover the car of HMD Motorsports driver Ernie Francis Jr, who stopped on track coming out of the last corner.

The session didn’t resume, meaning Simpson was fastest by 1.3996s over Kaminsky, with HMD’s Danial Frost only slightly behind. Louis Foster, the pacesette in the previous round in Detroit, could do no better than 16th place, 2.7882s off the pace.

Free practice results