IndyCar Testing Begins at NOLA

While the official preseason testing for IndyCar begins on Monday and Tuesday at Barber Motorsports Park, there were plenty of teams and cars on track at NOLA today. In all, 18 cars turned laps on Saturday, with Scott Dixon recording the fastest time (1.18.140). Second was defending Series Champion Will Power (1.18.195), teammate Juan Montoya third (1.18.298), with Rookie Stefano Coletti (1.18.340) and Graham Rahal (1.18.353) rounding out the top five.

There were plenty of new liveries on display, which you can see in the slide show below. All photos courtesy of IndyCar.

There were some notable changes to many of the cars. Josef Newgarden’s car is now cloaked in black and gold. The newest member of Team Penske, Simon Pagenaud, proudly displays the yellow and white colors on his No. 22 Chevrolet. His teammate/rival Will Power has much more white on his car this year, in addition to the number change.

Tony Kanaan is sporting the NTT Data colors (in the 10 car) that Ryan Briscoe had last season. Sage Karam’s GE LED sponsored No. 8 car is blue and purple. Recently signed KV driver, Sefano Coletti had a sleek looking design on his car, which is mostly a dark grey, with orange highlights.

The 18 drivers participating in today’s test were:

Team Penske (Power, Montoya, Pagenaud)
Andretti Autosport (Hunter-Reay, Andretti, Munoz)
Ganassi (Dixon, Kanaan, Kimball, Karam)
AJ Foyt Racing (Sato, Hawksworth)
CFH Racing (Newgarden)
KV Racing (Bourdais, Coletti)
RLL Racing (Rahal)
SPM (Hinchcliffe, Jakes)

There were plenty of videos posted on social media as well.

Lots of cars on track right now! Racing season is here! #IndyCar pic.twitter.com/ZX9wYuUEOf

— IndyCar Series (@IndyCar) March 14, 2015

.@simonpagenaud and @stefanocoletti head out for some laps! #IndyCar pic.twitter.com/jtdAKw7WrQ

— IndyCar Series (@IndyCar) March 14, 2015

View this post on Instagram

Sound of the Chevy. All cars seem a bit louder this year with the new exhaust built to work with the aerokits. #IndyCar #Racing #HondaVsChevy

A post shared by Graham Rahal (@grahamrahal) on Mar 14, 2015 at 8:24am PDT

Below are the results from today’s test at NOLA Motorsports Park, courtesy of KV Racing.

https://instagram.com/p/0OW0MUBWLN/

Helio Castroneves and Ed Carpenter are testing at Texas Motor Speedway today, after their plans yesterday were rained out. They will be testing the oval package for the Chevrolet aero kit. Andretti Autosport will be testing again at NOLA tomorrow, then it’s off to Barber for IndyCar Spring Training.

Click here for the Full Entry List for the testing at Barber Motorsports Park on March 16, 17

The first test sessions are from 10:00 AM to 1 PM (local time) both days. The afternoon sessions are from 2 PM to 6 PM. Click here for the full, detailed schedule for Monday and Tuesday.