Friday Report: Laguna Seca

A bright and sunny day in Monterey, California saw Arrow McLaren SP on track at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

Pato O'Ward ended the only practice session of the day in the eighth position, while Felix Rosenqvist completed the 12th-fastest lap.

On Saturday, the team returns for one practice session and qualifying, before final preparations for Sunday's 95-lap race. This is the season finale for the 2022 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season.

See what the Arrow McLaren SP drivers Pato and Felix said after first practice, as well as President Taylor Kiel. Tune in for the race on NBC this Sunday at 2:40 p.m. ET.

Key info

"I think the No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet is in the window -- it feels just like when we were last here a week ago during testing. The red Firestone tires were extremely odd, and I don't think we're the only car. I think it was odd for everybody. The delta from reds to blacks isn't as big as we thought, so it's going to be a huge player in the race compared to what last year seemed to be in terms of the right call on tires and strategy. We're going to look further into that and prepare for qualifying tomorrow."

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"We didn’t get a super good read on the Firestone reds. It was a messy session with a lot of interrupted runs because of traffic. Pato was also dealing with traffic. The No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet team wasn’t able to turn a lot of laps today, and conditions aren’t very similar to what they were at the test, so we will have to keep an open mind about the cooler conditions for the rest of the weekend. I think everyone had the same issues out there, trying to find space on the racetrack without traffic and sand on the surface. I definitely feel like both of us have more in our pocket.”

"It was an interesting day today, but it's obviously nice to be back. This track is very tricky and has low grip because of the old surface. It's particularly a challenge for the drivers and engineers, but we were lucky enough to test here last week and certainly had a good baseline coming out of the box. 

"The alternate Firestone tires are super interesting so far after Practice 1. I think some people actually went slower. We got a little bit faster but certainly not as fast as we thought we were going to be. Then, we saw Josef Newgarden put in a pretty good lap, but he was the only one."

"We will have to figure it out tonight with those tires, and there's certainly a lot of homework to do to put ourselves in a position to be on pole, but that's what we'll do. We have another practice session before quali tomorrow, so we'll take advantage of that and see how it goes."

Session times

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