MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Alex Palou, the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series champion for Chip Ganassi Racing, finally got his wish of testing the McLaren F1 machine.
Palou participated in Friday’s Free Practice session at Circuit of The Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas.
It’s the site of this weekend’s United States Grand Prix.
Palou lapped the 20-turn COTA course in 1 minute, 39.911 seconds for his fastest lap, the 17th lap of 21 for the IndyCar driver.
“Awesome, I’m super happy,” Palou said. “The session went really well. You always think that you’re ready, but you never know when you come here. Obviously, there’s a bit of pressure of having a car that’s not yours, that has to go out on the track again a short time later, along with all the data that we had to collect for the team.
“I think the Driver Development Program work that we did before coming here was awesome because it got me ready for today – and I think I did everything I could in one hour.
“I felt as comfortable as I could expect. Obviously, not my car, not my team environment, either – but I still felt really comfortable, and I think we achieved what we wanted, so really, really happy.”
Andrea Stella, McLaren’s Executive Director, Racing, assessed Palou’s effort.
“We ran Alex Palou in FP1, and we’re all very impressed with his performance,” Stella said. “He prepared really well and executed the run plan exactly as we wished, always in control of the car, delivering valuable information – well done, Alex.
“He handed the car back for FP2, and Daniel Ricciardo was able to get through a very busy program, first on the race tries, and then joining Lando Norris in completing Pirelli’s test program. We finished that in good time and are now looking forward to the rest of the U.S. Grand Prix weekend.”