Barber IndyCar Friday Stories: Andretti’s statement and a “boring” car

Written by Archie O’Reilly, Edited by Morgan Holiday

Credit: Joe Skibinski

After a final three-week hiatus between races, IndyCar’s Grand Prix of Alabama weekend has commenced. And with rain forecast on Saturday, Friday played host to a critical opening practice session at Barber Motorsports Park…

Ericsson leads the way for Andretti

Barber has historically not been the strongest of tracks for Andretti Global. But it was Marcus Ericsson who led on the overall time sheets with an alternate-tyre lap delivered at the end of the initial 40-minute all-car session - reduced from 45 minutes from this weekend onwards.

His teammate Colton Herta was third, having been the quickest driver on the primary tyres in the initial session. He topped the first of the 12-minute group sessions (extended by two minutes) on his alternate run. Kyle Kirkwood was third in the second group, rounding out a great dat for Andretti.

Championship leader Álex Palou was second overall for Chip Ganassi Racing having topped Group 2, with Team Penske’s Will Power and Ed Carpenter Racing’s Alexander Rossi - second and third in Group 1 - rounding out the combined top five.

Josef Newgarden was sixth and two-time defending Barber winner Scott McLaughlin eighth, ensuring all three Penske cars made the top 10 at one of the team’s strongest tracks historically. McLaughlin had an early excursion at the final corner before saving a high-speed downhill spin with some exceptional car control.

Devlin DeFrancesco delivered one of the day’s most impressive performances in seventh overall for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, opting to run the alternates at the end of the all-skate session and placing himself second after the first 40 minutes. 

Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel ended opening practice seventh after running the same strategy as DeFrancesco. His teammates Christian Lundgaard and Pato O’Ward were 13th and 14th.

Scott Dixon rounded out the top 10 for CGR, whose technical allies at Meyer Shank Racing had a tricky session after their strong start to the season, with Marcus Armstrong 16th and Felix Rosenqvist 17th after finding the gravel late on. 

Credit: Paul Hurley

Herta “sucked” in past at Barber

Renowned for his qualifying, Herta has never qualified higher than ninth at Barber. His best race result was eighth last year. And he is well aware all of this.

“There are some tendencies that we have gained that are negative or my reads on things have been negative,” Herta said. “This is my worst track by far for qualifying and really racing. But I think the racing part is because we qualify bad. I think we always race really well here… it’s just hard to make up positions when you start at the back here. 

“Qualifying, yeah, I’ve sucked here. This is the only track that I’ve gone to that I’ve not made a Fast Six. So I’d love to change that. Who knows what will happen? I haven’t driven here in the wet in a long time so we’ll see how that plays a role.”

To finish third in practice, lead his group and have Andretti on top overall with Ericsson is an encouraging start for the team this weekend. Fresh off the back of Long Beach victory with Kirkwood, there is a real sense of momentum for the team.

“I’m happy with it,” Herta said. “We were, it feels like, the only team that didn’t test here in the winter. So the team really made a statement to be able to roll off the trucks like that and that fast. I felt really comfortable with the car.”

Herta sits seventh in the standings after three races, though already 69 points behind Palou. It has been a promising start to 2025 for the American driver, qualifying on the front row in St. Petersburg and Long Beach, albeit falling to 16th and seventh in those races. A fourth-place start and finish at Thermal, which had been a weaker track for Andretti, was encouraging.

So is Herta happy?

“Yes and no,” he said. “There’s some pretty major things if we could go back, we would have changed. But for the most part we’re not making huge mistakes. 

“There’s been some things here and there from myself and the team in the first few weekends that have not been great and have put us in this position. But if you look at it, second through 15th or whatever, it’s pretty close. So I’m happy with how it’s going. There’s always stuff that you can improve on but I think we’ve had the right idea for a lot of places.”

Credit: Joe Skibinski

O’Ward: Barber “less fun” with hybrid

Where Herta has not quite gelled with the Barber track, O’Ward is a winner in Alabama and adores the flowing, undulating 2.3-mile road course. But his start to this weekend was not necessarily the smoothest.

“I love Barber,” he said. “I love this place. It’s high commitment. It’s obviously a stunning facility. I have a lot of good memories to remember whenever I come back here.

“But we tested here a couple of weeks ago and today has definitely been a little bit different. So we’re just looking through that but I think it’s alright. Just little clean-ups that we have to do here and there. We’ll get it right where we need to.”

Arrow McLaren locked out the front row at the opening road course race of the season at Thermal. But O’Ward was not quite able to understand the tyres in opening practice at Barber.

“Sometimes it always seems to have the same balance shift from primes to reds or a little bit more consistent,” he said. “Today was a little bit of a different story. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it and understand. 

“It just starts doing all sorts of things and you are like: ‘What do we need to fix?’ It’s like: ‘Well sadly, everything.’ That requires a lot of data analysing by the engineers and us to really see what problems we want to prioritise. Sometimes one set [of tyres] will do that and then the next one is like: Wow, it’s half a second quicker.’ So I have no idea.”

The extra weight and resultant balance shift from the hybrid system, O’Ward feels, has detracted somewhat from the enjoyment usually served up by Barber.

“It’s less fun,” he said. “The cars have gotten a lot more boring. This is one of the tracks where you would really enjoy being able to throw it around. You can still kind of do it but the windows narrow down a lot. You can piss it off a lot quicker. 

“You definitely feel the added weight. The tyres feel the added weight. You have to change quite a bit on the car in order to get it back into the window because it’s definitely shifted a lot of the balance.”

Credit: Joe Skibinski

2025 season set to ramp up in May

With May underway, the staggered start to the IndyCar season is over. From now until the close of the season at the end of August, there are only four off-weekends for the drivers and teams. 

But given the season is compacted into a six-month period, the paddock is keen to make the most of this period. It is as simple as racing drivers desperately wanting to race.

“I love it,” Herta said. “If it was up to me, I would love the NASCAR schedule for us to be able to race every weekend. But the job that the drivers have and the job that the truckies and mechanics and engineers have is vastly different. 

“It’s about to get crazy for them. But for me it’s a welcoming thing. The more races that we can do, the happier I’ll be.”

It is important for drivers and teams to manage their workload across busy period to ensure they still can perform at their best in the long run.

“This is my sixth year here… I can’t believe it,” O’Ward said. “But if the six years that I’ve been here have taught me something, it’s learn how to say no and don't feel bad about it, because you're the one driving the car. 

“If someone is asking something, say: ‘Do you want me to win the race or not?’ Everybody wants a piece of you at the end of the day and they want you here and here. Ultimately, why are we doing this? We do this to win races. We do this because we want to win the Indy 500. I guarantee you they will forgive you if you win that race.”

A five-week period of cars being on track every weekend is now underway. And with rain probable on Saturday before brightening up again on Sunday at Barber, a testing weekend awaits the whole paddock.