Toronto IndyCar: Dixon leads opening practice

The Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda driver lapped the 1.786-mile street course in 61.0723sec, an average speed of 105.278mph, to beat championship leader Josef Newgarden of Team Penske-Chevrolet.

Things did not initially go smoothly for Newgarden as he was one of three drivers to bring out the red flags with a spin at the final corner.

Team Penske-Chevrolet’s Will Power had just set second fastest time of the session so far but after sliding around at extraordinary angles, the car got away from him out of the final corner and he did a 180-degree spin without hitting anything.

Teammate Newgarden was less lucky – he spun and stalled at the same place but not before tagging the wall with his right-rear and bending a toelink.

Minutes later, Takuma Sato spun his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda at the same point and managed to miss the wall but ended up facing into the pit exit just as Marco Andretti was coming out. Taku, like Will and Josef, stalled and needed a bumpstart.

All three were parked for five minutes for causing session stoppages.

However, Newgarden nailed P2 with his final lap of the session to split the two Ganassi cars, as Felix Rosenqvist looked back on form with a time 0.1672 slower than teammate Dixon.

Alexander Rossi was fourth for Andretti Autosport-Honda, with 2017 Toronto polesitter Simon Pagenaud slotting the other Penske into fifth ahead of the second Andretti car of Ryan Hunter-Reay. Power managed to grab seventh with his final lap, albeit half a second slower than Newgarden, while Sebastien Bourdais, another former winner here, was eighth, ahead of Sato and Spencer Pigot of Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevy.

Local hero James Hinchcliffe was only 13^th for Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda.

Sage Karam, due to make his first non-oval IndyCar start in four years, was 2.9sec off the ultimate pace and around 1.8sec behind Carlin-Chevy teammate Max Chilton.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	18	1'01.0723			105.278
2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	14	1'01.2138	0.1415	0.1415	105.035
3	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	27	1'01.2395	0.1672	0.0257	104.991
4	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	16	1'01.3843	0.3120	0.1448	104.743
5	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	16	1'01.4969	0.4246	0.1126	104.552
6	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	15	1'01.6702	0.5979	0.1733	104.258
7	Will Power	Team Penske	17	1'01.6841	0.6118	0.0139	104.234
8	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	16	1'01.7180	0.6457	0.0339	104.177
9	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	15	1'01.8080	0.7357	0.0900	104.025
10	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	18	1'01.8286	0.7563	0.0206	103.991
11	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	17	1'01.8747	0.8024	0.0461	103.913
12	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	16	1'01.8883	0.8160	0.0136	103.890
13	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	16	1'01.9302	0.8579	0.0419	103.820
14	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	15	1'02.0513	0.9790	0.1211	103.617
15	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	23	1'02.0979	1.0256	0.0466	103.540
16	Max Chilton	Carlin	14	1'02.2369	1.1646	0.1390	103.308
17	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	14	1'02.4007	1.3284	0.1638	103.037
18	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	18	1'02.4735	1.4012	0.0728	102.917
19	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	21	1'02.6955	1.6232	0.2220	102.553
20	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	17	1'02.9165	1.8442	0.2210	102.193
21	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	17	1'03.0755	2.0032	0.1590	101.935
22	Sage Karam	Carlin	23	1'03.9765	2.9042	0.9010	100.499
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