Rookies Santino Ferrucci and Marcus Ericsson showed their newfound oval prowess during the opening pract🃏i🌊ce for the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at the World Wide Technology Raceway.

Ferrucci topped the timesheets with a lap of 24.3501 second around the 1.25-mile oval. With three top tens out of the four ovals this year, the Woodburry, Connecticut native feels conf༺ident about climbing up the standings with a good run tomorrow evening.

 “It’s all about mom🌳entum and I feel that we are doing a really good job,” he said. “It makes a difference, especially coming down to the end of the championship, for us to win the rookie title and coming into the top then points.

“Just keep staying on our game, stayinꦕg consistent and doing what we can do.”

Ericsson wound up a scant .036s behind his fellow𝓰 rookie in his Arrow SPM Honda. A trio of former Indy car champions claimed completed the top five with Scott Dixon posting the third fastest lap (24.3991s) followed by points leader Josef Newgarden in fourth (24.4103s) while Ferrucci’s Dale Coyne Racing teammate Sebastien Bourdais rounded out the top five (24.4283s).

Newgarden’s championship rival Alexander Rossi enters this race 35 points in arrears and kickedꦜ off the weekend with the sixth quickest time. Pocono winner and las▨t year’s Gateway champion Will Power took the seventh quickest time in his Team Penske Chevrolet.

Four different Honda-powered teams completed the top𒅌 ten with the RLL entry of Takuma Sato logging the eighth quickest lap followed by Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay en𒁏ding up ninth.

Completing the top ten was the Harding Steinbrenne𒁏r Racing car of Colton Herta. The 19-year-old Californian is making his debut at WWTR afte🌱r logging two podiums in Indy Lights from 2017-18.