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Australia

Indy GP: Power leads Rossi in opening practice

Two-time Indy Grand Prix winner Will Power threw in a last-minute flyer of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course to top the times in FP1 and edge ahead of two ex-F1 reserve drivers, Alexander Rossi and Jordan King.

Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet

Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet

Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

The #12 Team Penske-Chevrolet lapped the 2.439-mile course in 70.0866sec, to go a mere 0.0332 faster than Rossi’s Andretti Autosport-Honda, which had last month beat Power by a similar fraction in the test here. However, those times, set in frigid conditions, were some 1sec faster.

King’s Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevy was a similar minuscule margin behind Rossi, as the top seven were covered by just 0.2sec. Sebastien Bourdais’ Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan entry was fourth ahead of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda of Graham Rahal, with championship leader sixth fastest in the second Penske.

Ed Jones was just 0.15sec slower than his Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda teammate Scott Dixon, while Spencer Pigot made it two ECR cars in the top 10.

Tenth place went to Helio Castroneves, as he prepares for his first IndyCar race entry since last September in Sonoma, setting a best around 0.35 off his pacesetting teammate, and 0.18sec up on the fourth Penske of Simon Pagenaud.

Zachary Claman De Melo, filling in for Pietro Fittipaldi in the #19 Coyne car was an impressive 14th.

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda, which struggled in the test, continued to struggle, Robert Wickens and James Hinchcliffe only 16th and 20th.

Carlin Racing’s Charlie Kimball and Max Chilton were only 21st and 23rd, the latter making a couple of run-on errors, but they were also only one second off top spot.

IndyCar, Grand Prix of Indianapolis, FP1

ClaDriverLapsTimeGapIntervalMph
1 12 australia  Will Power  18 1'10.0866     125.279
2 27 united_states  Alexander Rossi  18 1'10.1198 0.0332 0.0332 125.220
3 20 united_kingdom  Jordan King  15 1'10.1551 0.0685 0.0353 125.157
4 18 france  Sébastien Bourdais  13 1'10.1791 0.0925 0.0240 125.114
5 30 japan  Takuma Sato  18 1'10.1824 0.0958 0.0033 125.108
6 1 united_states  Josef Newgarden  17 1'10.2802 0.1936 0.0978 124.934
7 9 new_zealand  Scott Dixon  18 1'10.2858 0.1992 0.0056 124.924
8 21 united_states  Spencer Pigot  17 1'10.3180 0.2314 0.0322 124.867
9 10 united_arab_emirates  Ed Jones  21 1'10.4422 0.3556 0.1242 124.647
10 3 brazil  Helio Castroneves  18 1'10.4589 0.3723 0.0167 124.617
11 26 united_states  Zach Veach  18 1'10.4869 0.4003 0.0280 124.568
12 15 united_states  Graham Rahal  18 1'10.4925 0.4059 0.0056 124.558
13 98 united_states  Marco Andretti  16 1'10.5233 0.4367 0.0308 124.504
14 19 canada  Zachary Claman De Melo  16 1'10.5781 0.4915 0.0548 124.407
15 28 united_states  Ryan Hunter-Reay  14 1'10.5903 0.5037 0.0122 124.385
16 6 canada  Robert Wickens  18 1'10.6076 0.5210 0.0173 124.355
17 14 brazil  Tony Kanaan  15 1'10.6109 0.5243 0.0033 124.349
18 22 france  Simon Pagenaud  19 1'10.6420 0.5554 0.0311 124.294
19 4 brazil  Matheus Leist  17 1'10.9206 0.8340 0.2786 123.806
20 5 canada  James Hinchcliffe  16 1'10.9351 0.8485 0.0145 123.781
21 23 united_states  Charlie Kimball  19 1'11.0204 0.9338 0.0853 123.632
22 88 colombia  Gabby Chaves  15 1'11.0999 1.0133 0.0795 123.494
23 59 united_kingdom  Max Chilton  18 1'11.2279 1.1413 0.1280 123.272
24 32 united_states  Kyle Kaiser  17 1'11.3756 1.2890 0.1477 123.017

 

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