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Mid-Ohio IndyCar: Pagenaud sets early practice pace

The first practice session for the 2017 edition of the Honda 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course began the same way last year's race ended, with Simon Pagenaud in P1. 

Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet

Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet

Scott R LePage / Motorsport Images

The reigning Verizon IndyCar Series champion's lap timed at 1m04.9079 seconds, an average of 125.236mph, was only three hundredths of a second ahead of 2015 race winner, and Ohio native, Graham Rahal. 

The first of three 45-minute practice sessions got off to a slow start as drivers inside the top 10 in points elected to conserve their Firestone tires for later in the session. 

Max Chilton was the early pace-setter, but his spot at the top of the timesheet was quickly taken by Pagenaud and his Penske teammates, Josef Newgarden and Helio Castroneves, who traded quickest laps through the second half of the session. 

Current championship leader, and five-time winner at Mid-Ohio, Scott Dixon had the ninth quickest lap, three tenths of a second behind Pagenaud. 

Marco Andretti, who is coming off his best finish of the season, a fourth at the Honda Indy in Toronto, ended the session with the third best laptime. 

Castroneves, who is currently three points behind Dixon was the fourth quickest driver. 

The top nine drivers were all within three tenths of a second of leader Pagenaud, and 20 of the 21 drivers were all within one second. 

Steve Wittich

ClaDriverLapsTimeGapMph
1 france Simon Pagenaud  13 1'04.9079   125.236
2 united_states Graham Rahal  19 1'04.9422 0.0343 125.170
3 united_states Marco Andretti  19 1'04.9814 0.0735 125.094
4 brazil Helio Castroneves  15 1'04.9834 0.0755 125.090
5 australia Will Power  19 1'05.1323 0.2244 124.804
6 united_kingdom Max Chilton  23 1'05.1429 0.2350 124.784
7 united_states Josef Newgarden  16 1'05.1910 0.2831 124.692
8 united_states Ryan Hunter-Reay  20 1'05.2256 0.3177 124.626
9 new_zealand Scott Dixon  15 1'05.2320 0.3241 124.614
10 united_states Spencer Pigot  20 1'05.5392 0.6313 124.030
11 united_states Alexander Rossi  17 1'05.5408 0.6329 124.027
12 canada James Hinchcliffe  12 1'05.6204 0.7125 123.876
13 russia Mikhail Aleshin  19 1'05.6651 0.7572 123.792
14 united_arab_emirates Ed Jones  13 1'05.6662 0.7583 123.790
15 colombia Carlos Munoz  16 1'05.6794 0.7715 123.765
16 japan Takuma Sato  17 1'05.6940 0.7861 123.737
17 united_states Conor Daly  19 1'05.7527 0.8448 123.627
18 united_states Charlie Kimball  16 1'05.7952 0.8873 123.547
19 brazil Tony Kanaan  16 1'05.8163 0.9084 123.507
20 mexico Esteban Gutierrez  16 1'05.8791 0.9712 123.390
21 united_states J.R. Hildebrand  20 1'06.0255 1.1176 123.116

 

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