Simon Pagenaud fastest in wet IndyCar practice at Indianapolis
Simon Pagenaud has gone fastest in a wet third IndyCar practice session on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course
The track was at its wettest early on but Pagenaud remained the benchmark as the conditions changed to dry-ish and then back to damp again, finishing up with a fastest time of 1m23.1597s.
Only Jack Hawksworth had any sort of answer to the Frenchman; the rookie briefly improving on Pagenaud's then-best lap by 0.0009s to hold the top spot for a couple of minutes before the French driver improved upon it.
Hawksworth also improved his time, although not sufficiently to reclaim his place at the head of the charts.
But it was enough to keep him ahead of everyone else, while James Hinchcliffe produced his best lap right at the end to finish up third-fastest.
Will Power and Carlos Munoz rounded out the top five on a morning littered with spins.
Ryan Briscoe caused the only stoppage of any real consequence when he skated off at Turn 6 early on, although his car was retrieved quickly and the session restated with little delay.
Mikhail Aleshin also brought out the reds when he spun and stopped in the middle of the back straight, although at that point there was less than 30 seconds remaining in the session.
The list of drivers who spun and got away with it was long: Power took to the grass twice, while Scott Dixon, Sebastian Saavedra, Sebastien Bourdais and Tony Kanaan also survived off-track adventures.
Further rain is forecast ahead of qualifying later today.
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Pos Driver Team/Engine Time Gap Laps 1. Simon Pagenaud Schmidt/Honda 1m23.1597s 21 2. Jack Hawksworth Herta/Honda 1m23.1732s +0.0135s 16 3. James Hinchcliffe Andretti/Honda 1m23.3126s +0.1529s 17 4. Will Power Penske/Chevy 1m23.3589s +0.1992s 20 5. Carlos Munoz Andretti/Honda 1m23.3622s +0.2025s 18 6. Sebastien Bourdais KV/Chevy 1m23.3655s +0.2058s 17 7. Scott Dixon Ganassi/Chevy 1m23.3890s +0.2293s 13 8. Sebastian Saavedra KV/Chevy 1m23.3944s +0.2347s 22 9. Helio Castroneves Penske/Chevy 1m23.5409s +0.3812s 20 10. Josef Newgarden Fisher/Honda 1m23.5493s +0.3896s 18 11. Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt/Honda 1m23.6669s +0.5072s 10 12. Juan Pablo Montoya Penske/Chevy 1m23.6836s +0.5239s 12 13. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti/Honda 1m23.7524s +0.5927s 14 14. Tony Kanaan Ganassi/Chevy 1m23.8611s +0.7014s 13 15. Marco Andretti Andretti/Honda 1m23.8641s +0.7044s 17 16. Martin Plowman Foyt/Honda 1m24.0121s +0.8524s 13 17. Justin Wilson Coyne/Honda 1m24.0300s +0.8703s 13 18. Carlos Huertas Coyne/Honda 1m24.0455s +0.8858s 13 19. Franck Montagny Andretti/Honda 1m24.1706s +1.0109s 17 20. Mike Conway Carpenter/Chevy 1m24.3799s +1.2202s 17 21. Takuma Sato Foyt/Honda 1m24.4363s +1.2766s 16 22. Ryan Briscoe Ganassi/Chevy 1m24.5152s +1.3555s 12 23. Graham Rahal Rahal/Honda 1m24.5310s +1.3713s 9 24. Charlie Kimball Ganassi/Chevy 1m24.7956s +1.6359s 15 25. Oriol Servia Rahal/Honda 1m24.9499s +1.7902s 11
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