Colton Herta rose ahead of the field in a stoppage-filled first practice session of the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey weekend.
The two-time Laguna winner set a flyer of 1 minute 07.5382 seconds around the freshly repaved 2.238-mile road course. The younger Herta’s lap unofficially eclipsed the track record set by Helio Castroneves in 2000 at 1:07.5382s.
The lap was set on the primary black tires as a slew of red flags dampened hopes of teams setting a representative lap on the grippier alternate red tires.
Herta’s effort barely pipped the Arrow McLaren duo of Pato O’Ward and Alexander Rossi, who were .0529s and .0594s in arrears respectively. Fourth place honors went to Marcus Ericsson in his last ride for Chip Ganassi Racing before departing for Andretti Autosport at season’s end.
Rounding out the top five was Kyle Kirkwood who was .312s behind Herta’s time.
Juri Vips logged an impressive sixth quickest time in his second outing with the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team. The fast lap came despite Vips stopping on track at direction of his crew due to a suspected engine issue.
Vips’ teammate Graham Rahal ended up seventh ahead of Callum Ilott while six-time series champ Scott Dixon was ninth and Rinus VeeKay was 10th.
The new track surface proved adventurous as a slew of drivers brought out red flags in the final hour of the session.
Romain Grosjean was the first to find the barrier in Turn 4, which damaged his No. 28 Andretti Autosport Honda enough to knock him out of the session.
Vips’ engine issue stopped the session for the second time while Scott McLaughlin spun in Turn 1 which stuck him in the gravel trap. Agustin Canapino went off course in Turn 6 shortly thereafter.
Will Power crashed in Turn 4 which brought the session to a premature end.