Castroneves heads Andretti in Sonoma’s opening practice
In a session where the leading runners made few laps to save their tire allocation, Helio Castroneves got it all right on his fourth and final lap to set fastest time.
Helio Castroneves, Team Penske Chevrolet
Rainier Ehrhardt
The Team Penske-Chevrolet driver lapped the 2.238-mile course in 1min17.3298sec – about one second off the lap record - to set a best lap speed of 111.031mph. That was just 0.1313sec faster than the session’s surprise, Marco Andretti, whose speed reflected a strong test for the Andretti Autosport-Honda team last week. Teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay was fifth fastest, although Alexander Rossi and Carlos Munoz were 11th and 20th respectively this morning.
The dearth of laps by most of the leading runners reflected their ambition to have fresh rubber for both qualifying and the race, and also the session being less than informative. Ambient temperature reached a high of only 65degF, whereas this afternoon – and, crucially, tomorrow afternoon when qualifying is held – temperature is expected to be 85deg.
Championship contenders Simon Pagenaud and Will Power therefore completed only five and four laps respectively, winding up 10th and 17th respectively. Outgoing champion, and defending Sonoma race-winner Scott Dixon completed just nine laps – a couple of them painfully slowly – and his Chip Ganassi Racing-Chevrolet finished the session 18th.
Graham Rahal, who struggled at this track last year, was third for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda, while Jack Hawksworth was fourth in what will probably be his final race weekend with AJ Foyt Racing-Honda, four places ahead of teammate Takuma Sato. Mikhail Aleshin and James Hinchcliffe were also close, filling out spots P6 and P9.
Josef Newgarden was seventh for Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet, as the team continues its quest to break up the Penske/Ganassi hegemony on the championship table. He can finish third in the title race this weekend if he can overturn his five-point deficit to Dixon and Castroneves.
P. | N° | Driver | Team (Engine) | Laps | Time/deficit |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 3 | Helio Castroneves | Penske (C) | 4 | 1:17.3298 |
2 | 27 | Marco Andretti | Andretti (H) | 15 | 0.1313 |
3 | 15 | Graham Rahal | Rahal (H) | 20 | 0.1678 |
4 | 41 | Jack Hawksworth | Foyt (H) | 15 | 0.2131 |
5 | 28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | Andretti (H) | 11 | 0.2528 |
6 | 7 | Mikhail Aleshin | Schmidt (H) | 21 | 0.2735 |
7 | 21 | Josef Newgarden | Carpenter (C) | 11 | 0.3088 |
8 | 14 | Takuma Sato | Foyt (H) | 23 | 0.3895 |
9 | 5 | James Hinchcliffe | Schmidt (H) | 19 | 0.4780 |
10 | 22 | Simon Pagenaud | Penske (C) | 5 | 0.5198 |
11 | 98 | Alexander Rossi | Andretti-Herta (H) | 23 | 0.5379 |
12 | 2 | Juan Pablo Montoya | Penske (C) | 8 | 0.5751 |
13 | 10 | Tony Kanaan | Ganassi (C) | 12 | 0.6263 |
14 | 19 | R.C. Enerson | Coyne (H) | 22 | 0.6479 |
15 | 83 | Charlie Kimball | Ganassi (C) | 14 | 0.6671 |
16 | 11 | Sébastien Bourdais | KVSH (C) | 16 | 0.7070 |
17 | 12 | Will Power | Penske (C) | 4 | 0.7506 |
18 | 9 | Scott Dixon | Ganassi (C) | 9 | 0.8276 |
19 | 20 | Spencer Pigot | Carpenter (C) | 19 | 0.8993 |
20 | 26 | Carlos Muñoz | Andretti (H) | 20 | 0.9268 |
21 | 8 | Max Chilton | Ganassi (C) | 22 | 0.9555 |
22 | 18 | Conor Daly | Coyne (H) | 15 | 1.8141 |
(C) = Chevrolet, (H) = Honda
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