Rosenqvist tops frantic opening practice session

Felix Rosenqvist has ended the first practice session from Barber Motorsports Park on top of the timesheets, posting a 1:09.230

The session was heavily interrupted by a number of red flags as a series of drivers spun off, including the two A.J. Foyt cars of Tony Kanaan and Matheus Leist.

The session ended under red as Spencer Pigot lost his car ad beached it in the gravel in the final minutes.

The threat of rain lingered in the air throughout the session, with a few drops falling throughout. Sebastien Bourdais jumped up to second place towards the end, beating James Hinchcliffe to the spot.

Hinchcliffe was one of those who found himself facing the wrong way during the session, spinning as he returned to the pitlane.

Scott Dixon was fourth, starting off the weekend strongly as he targets his first IndyCar win around the Alabama track. He was in front of Ryan Hunter-Reay, who was the lead Andretti car.

After obtaining the crown of IndyCar's youngest ever winner two weeks ago at the Circuit of the Americas, Colton Herta was sixth, beating his former Indy Lights rival Patricio O'Ward, who was seventh.

Takuma Sato had a violent spin during the session but managed to set the eighth fastest time ahead of Alexander Rossi and Simon Pagenaud who rounded out the top ten.

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1.	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	1:09.2296	-
2.	Sebastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	1:09.2750	+0.0454
3.	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1:09.3276	+0.0980
4.	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1:09.4373	+0.2077
5.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1:09.4452	+0.2156
6.	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	1:09.4987	+0.2691
7.	Patricio O'Ward	Carlin	1:09.5007	+0.2711
8.	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1:09.5479	+0.3183
9.	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1:09.8022	+0.5726
10.	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	1:09.8294	+0.5998
11.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	1:09.9137	+0.6841
12.	Will Power	Team Penske	1:09.9440	+0.7144
13.	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1:09.9707	+0.7411
14.	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1:10.1168	+0.8872
15.	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1:10.1253	+0.8957
16.	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	1:10.1428	+0.9132
17.	Max Chilton	Carlin	1:10.2630	+1.0334
18.	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	1:10.3180	+1.0884
19.	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	1:10.6279	+1.3983
20.	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1:10.7382	+1.5086
21.	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	1:10.7595	+1.5299
22	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	1:11.0773	+1.8477
23.	Ben Hanley	DragonSpeed	1:11.4122	+2.1826
24.	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1:33.6477	+24.4181