During testing Friday on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, two Verizon IndyCar Series drivers had their first opportunity to sample the track ahead of the upcoming INDYCAR Grand Prix on May 12.

Ed Carpenter Racing’s Jordan King and Dale Coyne Racing’s Pietro Fittipaldi had never driven the 2.439-mile layout using a portion of the famous 2.5-mile oval.

King is racing the No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolet for the road and street course races, with team owner Carpenter competing on the ovals. King said he studied the IMS road course layout before turning a wheel in the car.

“It was quite easy to get into the circuit,” said King. “I’ve known (it) from watching lots of races over the years anyway, so from that side of things it didn’t take too much learning.

“There’s still a little bit of work to be done on the car, still some more that I need to learn, but overall it was a good start.”

King enjoyed the smoothness of the track compared to the bumpy streets of St. Petersburg he encountered in his series debut on March 11. King led five laps of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg before suffering a tire puncture and finishing 21st.

The 24-year-old from Warwick, England, took a methodical approach to his testing day, not letting the realization of driving at IMS get to him until one pivotal moment.

“I wasn’t so much thinking about it, but I have to say when I drove down the straight and crossed over the yard of bricks at full speed, I did say to myself, ‘It’s the first time, it’s an iconic moment,’ and it put a smile on my face.”

Fittipaldi, the grandson of two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi, had a similar feeling. He will drive the No. 19 Dale Coyne Racing Honda in seven races this season, including both the INDYCAR Grand Prix and the 102nd Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil on May 27.

“It's a very historical place,” said Fittipaldi, 21, who will make his Verizon IndyCar Series debut on April 7 in the Desert Diamond West Valley Casino Phoenix Grand Prix (9 p.m. ET, NBCSN and Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network). “To be driving on this track is an amazing feeling because it has so much history and a lot of history from my family.

“I’m here to make a name for myself, I want to do better. I put more pressure on myself than anyone else can put because I really want to do well. I love racing, I want to win races so it’s going to be an honor to carry the Fittipaldi name here.”

Christian Fittipaldi, Pietro’s uncle, was the last Fittipaldi to race in the Indianapolis 500, finishing second and being named the race’s rookie of the year in 1995.

While Fittipaldi and King tested for the first time at IMS on Friday, Robert Wickens of Schmidt Peterson Motorsports was sidelined with a muscle injury. After working out in the morning and going to the track, Wickens said he pulled a muscle getting out of his passenger car.

“I just pulled something in the parking lot, it was super weird,” said Wickens. “It’s not going to set me back too long, but (I’m) just in a lot of agony right now.”

Wickens has competed on an IMS road course before, but not in its current layout. He competed on the original road-course configuration in 2006 when Formula BMW ran as a support series to Formula 1’s U.S. Grand Prix.

Then, there was no chicane after Turn 4 heading to the backstretch and there were two slow hairpin turns before going full throttle heading through Turn 1 of the oval in the opposite direction. The 2018 course takes a different, slower route before reaching the oval’s Turn 1.

“I think there’s going to be lot of these (learning) scenarios this year,” said Wickens, driver of the No. 6 Lucas Oil SPM Honda. “Most of the tracks, I either haven’t driven at all or I did it a decade ago, so it’s all going to be a learning phase. Every track’s probably going to be quite a bit different when I come back to it.”

Wickens won the seventh round of the 2006 Formula BMW Championship at Indianapolis for Apex Racing USA, an Indianapolis-based team. The Canadian went on to win the championship that year competing against drivers such as Simona de Silvestro, Stefano Coletti and Sebastian Saavedra.

“As a kid, those Formula BMW weekends racing in front of Formula 1, it was always special,” Wickens said. “I felt like this was my chance to be seen, so to win here was special, to kiss the bricks was special.”

Testing scheduled on the IMS oval this week was postponed until April 30-May 2 due to the heavy snowfall Indianapolis received over the weekend.