– At the only practice session for the double-header at the venerable Milwaukee Mile, Mick Schumacher (RLL-Honda; 21st) had a difficult start. The same goes for his teammates Graham Rahal (RLL-Honda; 17th) and Louis Foster (RLL-Honda; 23rd). (Free Practice results)
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Schumacher entered the weekend with subdued expectations. “We tested in Milwaukee; it didn’t go as well as we had hoped, but we gained a better understanding of what we need to do,” he said ahead of the weekend. Translated from the PR text, this means the test must have gone far from well.
This initially seemed to be confirmed. Schumacher did not move off the last place in the first half of the session and remained below the 150 miles per hour mark. Strictly speaking, he was in second to last place, as Nolan Siegel (McLaren-Chevrolet; 25th) threw his car into the wall before he could even complete a competitive lap.
“That completely surprised me. I was just doing a relaxed lap and suddenly I had a big moment in the middle of the corner. So I’m pretty perplexed right now,” said a visibly irritated Siegel, who does not yet have a cockpit for 2027.
In the second half, Schumacher improved to 154.400 mph and was temporarily 16th. After that, however, he fell out of the top 20 with that lap. Rahal was slightly faster at 155.672 mph but was also pushed back with that pace.
The session had to be interrupted a second time after Siegel’s accident when Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti-Honda; 8th) and Christian Rasmussen (ECR-Chevrolet; 13th) ended up together in the wall. The crash is likely to rank very high among the most unnecessary crashes of the season, as both took each other out of the action.
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Opinions naturally differ. “He turned in quite early and probably expected me to be way down and not take the normal line,” said Kirkwood. The “normal line” in this case is the center line, which has emerged as the preferred line.
Rasmussen sees it differently: “To me, it seemed like he never wanted to turn in. I was outside and didn’t feel like I turned in early. Then his rear tire apparently touched mine.”
The best time was held for a long time by points leader Alex Palou (Ganassi-Honda; 3rd) with an average of 158.890 mph, but towards the end he was overtaken by Josef Newgarden, who set the best time with 159.430 mph (256.58 km/h). Surprisingly, Dennis Hauger (Coyne-Honda) came in second. In both cases, a late qualifying simulation was done, as there is no further practice.
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Noteworthy besides the strong performance of Rinus “VeeKay” van Kalmthout (Juncos-Chevrolet; 5th) is the tenth place of his teammate Sting Ray Robb (Juncos-Chevrolet). A strong performance by Robb this weekend would be bad for Schumacher’s championship position.
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On Saturday, qualifying is scheduled from 5 p.m., followed by the first of the two races this weekend at 8:50 p.m. (All info on the double-header in Milwaukee)
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