Mid-Ohio IndyCar: Herta top again in third practice

Herta’s 65.705sec lap on primary tires was faster than he lapped on the softer alternates yesterday, and beat Pigot by just 0.0577sec while heading a total of seven Americans in the Top 10.

Behind Pigot, Rossi’s Andretti Autosport-Honda showed an encouraging leap forward on fresh primaries, lapping 0.17sec off top spot ahead of James Hinchcliffe who continues to shine this weekend in the Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda.

Santino Ferrucci headed the session for much of the time in the Dale Coyne Racing-Honda, and finished up just a couple of hundredths quicker than local hero Graham Rahal whose Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda made a big step forward from yesterday.

Josef Newgarden in his repaired #2 Team Penske-Chevy was the fastest of his team, although teammate Will Power in 10^th appeared to be testing the durability of the primaries with longer runs and still managed to set his fastest time on his final lap.

Ryan Hunter-Reay was eighth for Andretti Autosport, ahead of Sebastien Bourdais in the second Coyne (with Vasser-Sullivan) machine.

Series returnee RC Enerson spun his Carlin-Chevrolet out of Turn 9 and needed rescuing with the aid of a red flag, while Felix Rosenqvist dug his own way out of the Turn 4 sandtrap after a tortuous route back on track, but the Chip Ganassi Racing Honda driver finished the session in 20^th.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	16	1'05.7048			123.717
2	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	22	1'05.7625	0.0577	0.0577	123.608
3	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	15	1'05.8747	0.1699	0.1122	123.398
4	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	19	1'05.9580	0.2532	0.0833	123.242
5	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	20	1'05.9802	0.2754	0.0222	123.201
6	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	23	1'06.0040	0.2992	0.0238	123.156
7	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	18	1'06.0131	0.3083	0.0091	123.139
8	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	18	1'06.0208	0.3160	0.0077	123.125
9	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	18	1'06.0337	0.3289	0.0129	123.101
10	Will Power	Team Penske	17	1'06.0905	0.3857	0.0568	122.995
11	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	17	1'06.2461	0.5413	0.1556	122.706
12	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing with Arrow SPM	18	1'06.4020	0.6972	0.1559	122.418
13	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	20	1'06.4791	0.7743	0.0771	122.276
14	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	19	1'06.5063	0.8015	0.0272	122.226
15	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	21	1'06.5406	0.8358	0.0343	122.163
16	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	21	1'06.6059	0.9011	0.0653	122.043
17	Max Chilton	Carlin	19	1'06.6160	0.9112	0.0101	122.025
18	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	22	1'06.7119	1.0071	0.0959	121.849
19	R.C. Enerson	Carlin	22	1'06.8150	1.1102	0.1031	121.661
20	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	20	1'06.9675	1.2627	0.1525	121.384
21	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	20	1'07.0430	1.3382	0.0755	121.248
22	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	21	1'07.0735	1.3687	0.0305	121.192
23	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	21	1'07.1802	1.4754	0.1067	121.000
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