DETROIT — Two of the three Andretti Global drivers paced the NTT IndyCar Series field in Saturday morning’s practice session at the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix which ended in some harsh words between Santino Ferrucci, Kyle Kirkwood and Colton Herta.
It was Herta who had the fastest time at 1:01.5726 around the nine-turn, 1.65-mile temporary street course in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda. Teammate Kyle Kirkwood was second at 1:01.7381 in the No. 27 AutoNation Honda.
Last year’s winner, Alex Palou, of Chip Ganassi Racing was third at 1:01.8982 in the No. 10 DHL Honda. Rookie driver Theo Pourchaire was fourth quick at 1:01.9429 in the No. 6 Chevrolet at 1:01.9429. Pourchaire crashed in the final seconds of the practice session, which brought out an early red flag with 1:15 left in the session.
Afterwards, A.J. Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci pushed Kirkwood for an incident during practice when the two were involved in an on-track incident.
“You came into me,” Ferrucci yelled at Kirkwood. “Never do that again.”
Ferrucci spoke about the incident later.
“We’re in practice, I’m on a lap that is going to put me in P3 and was about to have the third fastest lap, and he comes down on me making a Dickish move,” Ferrucci said. “Then his boyfriend teammate comes down on me, too.”
Kirkwood gave his side of the incident.
“Of course, Santino is going to say that,” Kirkwood said. “Everyone has to stop there. It’s practice, relax.
“It’s just dumb. He’s dangerous. He drove into me trying to put me in the wall. Then, I tried to talk to him after the practice to tell him it was completely unnecessary. I was trying to see where his head was at. It makes no sense to me, at all.
“He’ll be a little bit behind us, so I’m not worried.”
Herta said, “That guy’s a head case. I don’t even know what I did. He passed me and I passed him back. He can do his thing, we’ll do ours.
“He’s driving a Penske car to P20th again. I don’t have time for his concerns. He’s always a ‘you-know-what’ in the race, so it doesn’t concern me.”
Agustin Canapino rounded out the top five at 1:02.1034 in the No. 78 Chevrolet for Juncos Hollinger Racing.