Long Beach IndyCar: Pagenaud, Rossi lead opening practice

Pagenaud, the 2016 Long Beach winner, clocked a 67.1991sec in the session, eclipsing two-time Long Beach winner Alexander Rossi of Andretti Autosport-Honda by 0.4021sec. Pagenaud's best time was two seconds quicker than Colton Herta's first practice time from last year's Long Beach in September. Today's temperatures hovered just under the 100degF mark.

Apart from the usual problems of drivers outbraking themselves and having harmless trips to runoff zones – Ganassi’s Scott Dixon and the Andretti cars of Romain Grosjean and Colton Herta were three high-profile candidates – the main incidents were caused by Jimmie Johnson who nosed into a tire wall after grabbing too much curb on corner entry, and Dalton Kellett who spun and stalled. Both incidents required a red flag.

Pato O’Ward smacked his left-rear against the wall and gave himself a puncture and a broken toe-link but the Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet driver re-emerged and he swiftly got on his teammate Felix Rosenqvist’s pace, although the pair were only 14^th and 15^th.

Behind Pagenaud and Rossi was series sophomore and St. Petersburg winner Scott McLaughlin who emerged as fastest of the Chevrolet drivers, just ahead of Team Penske-Chevrolet teammate Josef Newgarden.

Quickest of the Ganassi drivers was Marcus Ericsson, who edged ahead of Colton Herta, defending series champion Alex Palou and two-time Long Beach victor Will Power in the third of the Penske entries.

Two stars of the show were rookies Callum Ilott of Juncos Hollinger Racing-Chevy and Kyle Kirkwood of AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy, who both squeezed into the Top 10, taking advantage of their extra sets of Firestone tires.

They led two series veterans, Dixon and Helio Castroneves, while Jack Harvey's return after missing the Texas race due to a shunt, saw him finish the day in 17th, behind one of his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda teammates, Graham Rahal, but ahead of quick rookie Christian Lundgaard.

Second practice begins at 8.45am local (Pacific) time on Saturday.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	18	1'07.199			105.430
2	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	22	1'07.601	0.402	0.402	104.803
3	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	19	1'07.672	0.472	0.070	104.693
4	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	18	1'07.728	0.529	0.056	104.606
5	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	17	1'07.842	0.643	0.114	104.430
6	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	21	1'07.878	0.679	0.035	104.375
7	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	16	1'07.911	0.712	0.033	104.324
8	Will Power	Team Penske	21	1'08.000	0.800	0.088	104.188
9	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	23	1'08.020	0.821	0.020	104.157
10	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	20	1'08.022	0.823	0.002	104.154
11	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	15	1'08.047	0.848	0.025	104.115
12	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	16	1'08.157	0.958	0.110	103.947
13	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	14	1'08.173	0.974	0.015	103.923
14	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	9	1'08.414	1.215	0.241	103.557
15	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	17	1'08.461	1.262	0.046	103.486
16	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD	20	1'08.483	1.284	0.022	103.452
17	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	18	1'08.579	1.380	0.096	103.307
18	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	19	1'08.700	1.501	0.120	103.126
19	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	18	1'08.700	1.501	0.000	103.125
20	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	13	1'08.770	1.571	0.069	103.021
21	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	20	1'08.773	1.574	0.003	103.016
22	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	21	1'08.840	1.641	0.067	102.916
23	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	20	1'09.072	1.873	0.232	102.570
24	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing	17	1'09.246	2.046	0.173	102.313
25	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	7	1'09.620	2.421	0.374	101.763
26	Tatiana Calderon	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	18	1'09.982	2.783	0.362	101.237
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