Will Power led the way for Team Penske by recording the fastest lap of the first practice Friday for the Milwaukee 225 at The Milwaukee Mile.
Driving the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Dallara/Honda, Power recorded a top lap of 167.648 mph around the historic one-mile oval.
“The Verizon car was great right out of the box,” said Power, the IZOD IndyCar Series championship leader who is looking to build on the momentum of his first oval victory last Saturday night in Texas. “We laid down a quick lap straight-away and then went to work on full-tank runs. It felt great to be back on track here in Milwaukee. That was really a pretty solid session. We didn’t even make any changes. We will look at our data and keep working on our race car.”
His closest pursuer in the point standings, Target Chip Ganassi Racing’s Dario Franchitti, was second at 167.462 mph in the No. 10 Downy car, while Helio Castroneves was third in the No. 3 Guidepoint Systems car at 167.368 mph.
Castroneves was clocked at 167.368 mph in the No. 3 Guidepoint Systems Team Penske Dallara/Honda.
“So far so good with the Guidepoint Systems Team Penske car,” said Castroneves. “The test we did here really helped us and gave us a good place to start. Today was just the first practice so we still need to get with our teammates and figure out what we need to do to improve. Hopefully we can continue this performance tomorrow and have a solid qualifying result.”Briscoe was clocked at 163.614 mph in the No. 6 Transitions Adaptive Lenses Team Penske Dallara/Honda.
“We still have a bit of work to do,” said Briscoe. “The Transitions Team Penske car definitely looks good out there, and we were able to do a lot of race preparation work in practice, but we still need to find a better balance on the set-up. We’ll get there and continue to improve tomorrow, for sure.”Team Penske has a strong record at Milwaukee, having won twice in the last five races at the venerable track. The team also has won the pole position four of the last five times at The Mile.
Alex Tagliani and Vitor Meira were uninjured in separate incidents in Turn 4 during the session. Tagliani’s team was able to repair the car and he returned to practice at the end of the session while Meira’s car was too damaged to continue.
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