Practice report

IndyCar Toronto

Bourdais tops first practice at Toronto

Sebastien Bourdais, with two wins to his credit at Toronto, adapted quickest to the track revisions around the street course, topping the times in the opening session.

David Malsher-Lopez

Edited: Jul 15, 2016, 4:40 PM

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Sébastien Bourdais, KV Racing Technology Chevrolet

The KVSH Racing-Chevrolet driver lapped the course in 62.929sec, a lap speed of 102.9290mph to narrowly edge reigning champion Scott Dixon in the #9 Chip Ganassi Racing-Chevy.

Championship leader Simon Pagenaud was third for Team Penske-Chevy, ahead of the top Honda drivers, Takuma Sato (AJ Foyt Racing) and Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing).

The cars were visibly shuffling, bouncing and sliding through the new Turns 9/10/11 complex as surface changes brought on by local development have also seen the pits complex switch to the outside of the main straight. Pit entry is now to the left of Turn 9 rather than the right of Turn 10.

These additional surface changes on a track already renowned for them, had drivers tip-toeing through at first, and experimenting as the session went on. And the pit crews were kept busy adjusting spring rates, camber, and toe in/out.

The track alterations have increased the track length slightly, from 1.755 to 1.785 miles.

Will Power, another two-time Toronto winner, was sixth fastest for Penske, while top of the rookies was Indy 500 winner Alexander Rossi, who slotted his Andretti Autosport-Honda into 10th, two places behind teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Defending Toronto winner and last week’s Iowa victor Josef Newgarden was only 15th, one place and 0.2sec ahead of teammate Spencer Pigot, who resumes in Ed Carpenter Racing #20 as the series returns to road/street courses.

Another driver making a return is Luca Filippi of Dale Coyne Racing, who last year finished second for ECR at Toronto. For DCR this morning, he was 18th, two places ahead of teammate Conor Daly.

The DCR pair were split by local hero James Hinchcliffe who was about half a second off Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda teammate Mikhail Aleshin.

Toronto - Practice 1 P.N°DriverTeam (Engine)Time/deficit 1 11 Sébastien Bourdais KVSH (C) 1:02.9290 2 9 Scott Dixon Ganassi (C) 0.0448 3 22 Simon Pagenaud Penske (C) 0.1956 4 14 Takuma Sato Foyt (H) 0.2635 5 15 Graham Rahal Rahal (H) 0.3346 6 12 Will Power Penske (C) 0.3919 7 10 Tony Kanaan Ganassi (C) 0.4188 8 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti (H) 0.4694 9 3 Helio Castroneves Penske (C) 0.5624 10 7 Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt (H) 0.5895 11 98 Alexander Rossi Andretti-Herta (H) 0.6271 12 27 Marco Andretti Andretti (H) 0.7167 13 2 Juan Pablo Montoya Penske (C) 0.7567 14 83 Charlie Kimball Ganassi (C) 0.7911 15 21 Josef Newgarden Carpenter (C) 0.8062 16 20 Spencer Pigot Carpenter (C) 0.9983 17 26 Carlos Muñoz Andretti (H) 1.0036 18 19 Luca Filippi Coyne (H) 1.0462 19 5 James Hinchcliffe Schmidt (H) 1.0817 20 18 Conor Daly Coyne (H) 1.2716 21 41 Jack Hawksworth Foyt (H) 1.3056 22 8 Max Chilton Ganassi (C) 2.5863

(C) = Chevrolet, (H) = Honda

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