McLaughlin Fastest In Opening Arlington Grand Prix Practice Session

Scott McLaughlin during the opening practice session at the Arlington Grand Prix (Photo by: Kylar Boggs/RacingClipsAndPics)

Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin is fastest in the opening Arlington Grand Prix practice session to start off the weekend. Going into this weekend, there are so many questions to be answered, so many unknowns as this is a brand new circuit on the NTT Indycar series calender for the 2026 season.

As the practice session began, drivers were getting a feel for the brand new street circuit for the very first time. About halfway into the session, Santino Ferrucci locks up the brakes and goes straight on in turn 4, but is able to back up and continue on.

However, shortly after that occured, the red flag was displayed for Sting Ray Robb going deep into turn 1 and coming to a stop. Robb had lost control under braking and hit the outside wall going into turn 1, damaging the front right suspension, and the front wing.

In addtion, drivers such as Mick Schumacher and Rinus Veekay also had issues with locking up their brakes. Schumacher, just like Ferrucci, locked up his brakes going into turn 4 as well but was able to continue on. However, Rinus Veekay was not so lucky with his incident. Not only he had massive front locking heading into turn 10, but both of his rear brakes caught fire, bringing out the red flag.

At the end of practice, it was Penske driver Scott McLaughlin fastest followed by Alex Palou, Will Power, Pato O' Ward, and Felix Rosenqvist to round out the top 5.