Simon Pagenaud claims the top spot after the first XPEL 375 Practice

Texas Motor Speedway was alive this morning as the first practice got off to a start for the XPEL 375 where Simon Pagenaud, Felix Rosenquist, and Colton Herta landed the top three spots in Free Practice 1. 

The session began with an early yellow flag as David Malukas slowed down to a crawl on the apron. He created a caution just eight minutes into the session by under-fueling the car. 

The same can be said for Jimmie Johnson as he did the same just a few minutes later into the session. Johnson, a former NASCAR champion, has his hopes set high for this weekend as he aims for a top ten finish after testing at the circuit in the offseason, additionally having raced here in his NASCAR career. 

Shortly after the cautions had ended, the top drivers came out to do their first laps around the circuit and Simon Pagenaud capitalized on the moment immediately setting the fastest time of the session. The Meyer Shank Racing driver reached a top speed of 223.087 and the fastest lap, albeit with tow, of 0.23.276s. Pagenaud remained the fastest throughout the session logging a total of 46 laps.

Felix Rosenqvist followed behind Pagenaud with a lap time of 0.23.2594s. The Arrow McLaren driver wasn’t actually all that close to the leader as he was just two-tenths off the pace but the former had the advantage of a tow where Felix did not. 

Just below Rosenqvist was Colton Herta who had a quiet session with no major issues. The Andretti Autosport driver set a modest lap time of 0.23.2690 only a few hundredths off his preceding opponent.

The field features seven rookies this weekend as they have yet to get a true taste for the track. Of the seven, Formula 2 driver Callum Illot was the cream of the crop followed by another European formula driver, Romain Grosjean as they placed fourth and ninth respectively in the session. Following Grosjean would be Devlin DeFrancesco down in eleventh place who also had issues at one point but seemed to solve them quite quickly. At the tail end of the field was Kyle Kirkwood (15th), Christian Lundgaard (17th), David Malukas (18th), and Jimmie Johnson finishing 22nd.

Racing resumes at the Texas Motor Speedway as qualifying gets underway this afternoon.