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