The 15th weekend of IndyCar in 2025 is officially underway at the only stop of the series in the Pacific Northwest at Portland. The last road course of the season brings a new chance to gain championship points amid hot temperatures.
Full report and results are below.
Breaking News
INDYCAR has announced a six-position starting grid penalty for the No. 8 Chip Ganassi Racing entry for avoidable contact involving driver Kyffin Simpson during the Sunday, July 27 race at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The penalty comes after a post-race review of the Lap 1, Turn 6 incident with the No. 60 entry of Meyer Shank Racing.
Simpson was in violation of:
Rule 9.3.3. Avoidable Contact – The primary responsibility for avoiding contact with a Competitor resides with the overtaking Competitor and the secondary responsibility resides with the Competitor(s) being overtaken. A Competitor who fails to demonstrate their responsibility and initiates a maneuver that results in contact with another Competitor may be penalized.
According to the rulebook, a penalty can be applied at the next INDYCAR race if the penalty cannot be served at the event where the infraction took place.
Consistent with an Unapproved Engine Change-Out penalty in the INDYCAR rulebook, the Avoidable Contact grid penalty is six positions on road and street course events and nine positions at oval events and will be served at the series’ next event, the BITNILE.COM Grand Prix of Portland presented by askROI on Sunday, Aug. 10 at Portland International Raceway.
IndyCar Practice 1 starts at the Bitnile Grand Prix of Portland
The weekend’s theme is hot temps with the entire weekend reaching temps above 80. The practice session starts with a hot track temperature of 117 degrees Fahrenheit. It will be interesting to see how this affects team strategies. It will be important for the drivers to get the throttle flat.
Palou is better now than he’s ever been [on all types of tracks]. He will clinch the championship if his points lead is +108 after this weekend. Foster is feeling like he is starting strong this weekend, “we’ll see how we go in the standings…”
Simpson makes his way out on track with the new knowledge of his sixth-position grid penalty. With this new development, it will be interesting to see how this affects or doesn’t affect his performance during the weekend.
This will be Shwartzman’s only year to get in a good rookie battle as he starts to wrap up his first year in the NTT IndyCar series.
Lundgaard hits a bit of the curve on the right at turn 9. Coming back around at turn 2, he misses slight contact with Marcus Armstrong. With twenty four minutes remaining, Lundgaard pulls ahead of the group. Fan-favorite Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward still in championship contention, battling Palou this weekend and shooting to close the points gap.
With twenty three minutes left, the No. 26 Gainbridge car of Colton Herta sits on the pit wall with some issues with the engine.
Action On Track Heats Up
Some random debris is found on track near turn 3 and brings out the red flag briefly.
With 22 minutes to go, Palou leaves the pits with seemingly no issues so far. Lundgaard pulls away from the rest of the pack with twenty one minutes to go with a 59.219.
The No. 9 Chip Ganassi of Scott Dixon is in the grass around the turn 9-10-11 section. The veteran possibly stalled with no harm to himself. This brings out the second red flag of the session.
The green flag is brought out shortly and O’Ward leads the pack as Lungaard is in the pits. Lundgaard leaves the pits and with ten minutes left in practice 1, he leads with teammate Pato O’Ward trailing behind.
With seven minutes left in the session, on track activities have seemed to calm down and return to consistent racing. It will be interesting to hear about what caused the engine issues on the No. 26 car with Andretti.
The full field session ends with two Penske drivers making it into the top 10. Penske’s 2025 season has been quite rough with penalties.
Split Running: Group 1
Group 1 of the split runnings start with Lundgaard staying at the top running the Firestone red tires. Rahal follows closely behind as he also runs on the soft tires – he is just 0.1520 off from Lundgaard.
Rosenqvist pulls up behind Lungaard as the group session finishes.
Lundgaard looks very strong during Practice 1, staying at the front of the full field session and group 1. The driver of the No. 7 Arrow McLaren leads Rosenqvist with a 58.523 with the former McLaren driver finishing with 58.658.
Power mentions that his car seemed to lack pace while out on track. There is much work to be done by the team to prepare for the rest of the weekend
Lundgaard seems to be the fastest on the hard and soft tires out on track. “…[the race] will be physical for sure.“
Temperatures in Portland this year are the hottest it has ever been since the NTT IndyCar series has races in the Pacific Northwest.
Group 2
Palou starts group 2 at the front of the pack with a 1:00.050. Kirkwood is just a couple of tenth off the times of Lundgaard as he currently leads the pack with seven minutes left in the session.
O’Ward briefly jumps to the front as Palou makes a stop in the pits. Palou sets the fastest lap with 3 minutes to go and stays at the front till the finish with a 58.538, a few thousands slower than the Dane.
Overall Practice 1 Results at Portland GP
