Barber IndyCar: James Hinchliffe fastest in final practice
James Hinchcliffe used his final flying lap to go fastest in the third IndyCar practice session at Barber
The Canadian, whose Andretti team-mate Ryan Hunter-Reay topped both Friday sessions, became the first driver of the weekend to dip below the 1m08s barrier when he delivered a 1m07.9206s with just one minute left on the clock.
Up to that point the benchmark had been Sebastien Bourdais, whose fastest time had remained unbeaten for nearly half an hour before Hinchliffe improved on it by 0.1 seconds.
But there was little to separate any of the frontrunners: the top 18 drivers were covered by just one second.
Scott Dixon recovered from an early trip through the grass to go third-fastest ahead of Helio Castroneves, who caused the only red flag when his car stopped on the track at the session's halfway point.
His Penske team-mate Will Power also survived a scare on his way to fifth-fastest; the Australian escaping a lurid spin that almost deposited him into the wall.
It was a tough session for Tony Kanaan who finished the session down in 21st place, with the Ganassi team reporting an ongoing struggle to find an optimal set-up.
Follow the MotoGP and IndyCar races as they happen on AUTOSPORT Race Centre Live from 17:30 UK time on Sunday April 27
Pos Driver Team/Engine Time Gap Laps 1. James Hinchcliffe Andretti/Honda 1m07.9206s 15 2. Sebastien Bourdais KV/Chevy 1m08.0290s +0.1084s 19 3. Scott Dixon Ganassi/Chevy 1m08.0916s +0.1710s 14 4. Helio Castroneves Penske/Chevy 1m08.1611s +0.2405s 21 5. Will Power Penske/Chevy 1m08.1670s +0.2464s 22 6. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti/Honda 1m08.1956s +0.2750s 14 7. Simon Pagenaud Schmidt/Honda 1m08.2083s +0.2877s 20 8. Josef Newgarden Fisher/Honda 1m08.2891s +0.3685s 17 9. Takuma Sato Foyt/Honda 1m08.3245s +0.4039s 23 10. Ryan Briscoe Ganassi/Chevy 1m08.3774s +0.4568s 16 11. Carlos Munoz Andretti/Honda 1m08.4454s +0.5248s 17 12. Juan Pablo Montoya Penske/Chevy 1m08.5097s +0.5891s 17 13. Justin Wilson Coyne/Honda 1m08.5359s +0.6153s 20 14. Charlie Kimball Ganassi/Chevy 1m08.6198s +0.6992s 19 15. Graham Rahal Rahal/Honda 1m08.6229s +0.7023s 20 16. Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt/Honda 1m08.6785s +0.7579s 17 17. Oriol Servia Rahal/Honda 1m08.7458s +0.8252s 18 18. Mike Conway Carpenter/Chevy 1m08.7848s +0.8642s 20 19. Marco Andretti Andretti/Honda 1m08.9432s +1.0226s 10 20. Sebastian Saavedra KV/Chevy 1m09.0011s +1.0805s 18 21. Tony Kanaan Ganassi/Chevy 1m09.0241s +1.1035s 13 22. Jack Hawksworth Herta/Honda 1m09.2564s +1.3358s 17 23. Carlos Huertas Coyne/Honda 1m09.2878s +1.3672s 19
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments