Toronto IndyCar: Josef Newgarden tops first practice
Josef Newgarden opened this week's IndyCar double-header in Toronto by going fastest in Friday's opening practice session
Newgarden, who comes into the weekend off the back of his first podium of the season at Iowa Speedway last Saturday, claimed P1 right at the end of the session with a 1m00.2385s effort.
"For a lot of the session we had a lot of traffic," he said. "At the end we got a clear lap, and managed to put it together."
Will Power left it similarly late to jump up to second, the Penske driver's time 0.2s slower than Newgarden's in the Sarah Fisher Hartman entry.
The pair combined to deny James Hinchcliffe an early hometown boost: the Toronto native had moved into the top spot with a couple of minutes left on the clock, but Newgarden and Power's last-gasp improvements forced the Andretti driver to settle for third.
Helio Castroneves led most of the morning before finally finishing up fourth fastest ahead of rookie Carlos Munoz.
Aside from a spectacular save from Power, who managed to survive a huge moment of oversteer through one of the right-handers, the morning passed almost entirely without incident.
Simon Pagenaud made a brief excursion off the track when he was forced to take to the escape road 20 minutes into the session, but he kept it off the walls and went on to finish sixth fastest.
Pos Driver Team/Engine Time Gap Laps 1. Josef Newgarden Fisher/Honda 1m00.2385s 24 2. Will Power Penske/Chevy 1m00.4497s +0.2112s 20 3. James Hinchcliffe Andretti/Honda 1m00.5728s +0.3343s 16 4. Helio Castroneves Penske/Chevy 1m00.6363s +0.3978s 20 5. Carlos Munoz Andretti/Honda 1m00.6514s +0.4129s 22 6. Simon Pagenaud Schmidt/Honda 1m00.8567s +0.6182s 21 7. Marco Andretti Andretti/Honda 1m00.8620s +0.6235s 19 8. Ryan Briscoe Ganassi/Chevy 1m00.8778s +0.6393s 19 9. Tony Kanaan Ganassi/Chevy 1m00.9126s +0.6741s 23 10. Graham Rahal Rahal/Honda 1m00.9147s +0.6762s 24 11. Sebastien Bourdais KV/Chevy 1m01.0454s +0.8069s 20 12. Mike Conway Carpenter/Chevy 1m01.1224s +0.8839s 21 13. Justin Wilson Coyne/Honda 1m01.1419s +0.9034s 19 14. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti/Honda 1m01.1836s +0.9451s 20 15. Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt/Honda 1m01.2391s +1.0006s 23 16. Scott Dixon Ganassi/Chevy 1m01.2419s +1.0034s 22 17. Sebastian Saavedra KV/Chevy 1m01.2496s +1.0111s 25 18. Charlie Kimball Ganassi/Chevy 1m01.2619s +1.0234s 22 19. Juan Pablo Montoya Penske/Chevy 1m01.2849s +1.0464s 20 20. Jack Hawksworth Herta/Honda 1m01.3050s +1.0665s 21 21. Takuma Sato Foyt/Honda 1m01.3583s +1.1198s 21 22. Luca Filippi Rahal/Honda 1m01.9588s +1.7203s 21 23. Carlos Huertas Coyne/Honda 1m02.0296s +1.7911s 23
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