– The thrilling final lap of the Indianapolis 500 was just five days ago, and on Friday the IndyCar drivers were already active at the wheel for the next session. The first Free Practice for this year’s Detroit Grand Prix was on the schedule at the street circuit in Detroit.
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Mick Schumacher (Rahal-Honda) finished this first practice of the weekend in the 25-driver IndyCar regular field in P23. On the street circuit, which was still unknown to him until Friday with its numerous bumps, Schumacher initially placed P24 in the 40-minute session, which was open to all. He improved his fastest lap so far (1:05.294 minutes on hard tires) in the subsequent group phase on soft tires.
As usual, Schumacher, as one of the rookies in the field, was allowed to go on track in both 12-minute segments of the group phase (Group 1 and Group 2). After these total 24 minutes were completed, a personal best time of 1:04.729 minutes was recorded for the rookie at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) ().
Alex Palou sets Friday’s best time
The fastest lap of all 25 drivers on Friday, namely 1:02.772 minutes, was set by Alex Palou (Ganassi-Honda) in the group phase on the soft tires, the red-marked “Reds”. Second fastest was Detroit last year’s winner Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti-Honda), followed by Will Power (Andretti-Honda) in P3.
There were no incidents in the form of accidents on the first day at the tricky street circuit. There were only one or two harmless lock-ups into one of the escape routes.
Such lock-ups were shown, among others, by the fastest of the day, namely defending champion and points leader Alex Palou, as well as the freshly crowned Indy 500 winner Felix Rosenqvist (Shank-Honda; 11th), Louis Foster (Rahal-Honda; 14th), and Sting Ray Robb (Juncos-Chevrolet; 25th).
Robb initially struggled for a long time with a defective clutch. The defect and the necessary repair meant that the Juncos driver from the USA was only able to go on track in the last 12 minutes of the day (Group 2).
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Not only Alexander Rossi, also Josef Newgarden drives with injury
Alexander Rossi (Carpenter-Chevrolet), whose foot injury from Monday’s Indy 500 practice is not yet fully healed, lined up in Detroit on Friday in P13. He still wears the carbon splint on his right foot. Rossi is not the only one driving with a minor injury.
Because Josef Newgarden (Penske-Chevrolet; 21st) also drives in Detroit with a splint on his foot, in his case on the left foot. The splint became necessary for the two-time IndyCar champion after his crash last Sunday during one of the restarts in the Indy 500.
Although Newgarden was declared fit on Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Medical Center, he stayed there until the end of the race to keep his foot iced. Newgarden followed the thrilling photo finish between Felix Rosenqvist and his own Penske teammate David Malukas in the Medical Center.
At the gala dinner, which traditionally takes place in Indianapolis on Monday evening after the Indy 500, Newgarden appeared for the first time with the splint on his left foot. Just like Alexander Rossi, the splint does not significantly impair his driving. Currently, both Ed Carpenter Racing and Team Penske expect that the affected drivers will complete the Detroit weekend.
On Saturday in Detroit, the second Free Practice (FP2) will take place in the morning and qualifying in three segments in the afternoon. Because it is a street circuit, the qualifying format adapted for this type of track this season will be used again.
This means the six-driver Q3 segment (“Fast Six”) will again be held as a single-lap time trial, where the top 6 from Q2 get to choose when and with which tire compound they want to run their only Q3 lap. The fastest from Q2 chooses first, the sixth fastest from Q2 takes the remaining slot in order for Q3 (IndyCar Detroit 2026 with Mick Schumacher: schedule, TV, all info).
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