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Detroit IndyCar: Tony Kanaan fastest in first practice

Tony Kanaan was fastest in the opening practice session for this weekend's IndyCar double-header in Detroit

The Brazilian went to the top in the final minutes of the session with a 1m16.2931s lap to bump Ganassi team-mate Sage Karam from the top spot by 0.2s.

Rookie Karam's best time was still good enough to keep him in second place for a Ganassi one-two.

There were shades of last weekend's epic Penske versus Ganassi battle at the Indianpolis 500 at the top of the order, with three Penske drivers rounding out the top five.

The stars and flops of the Indy 500

Coincidentally the one Penske driver who was not among them was Indy winner Juan Pablo Montoya, who led the session early on but eventually dropped down to tenth.

Honda arrived in Detroit with a new configuration to its front wing, but this morning was all about Chevrolet: Foyt's Takuma Sato was the only driver from the HPD camp to finish the session within one second of Kanaan's time.

The session was interrupted four times by red flags, although all were prompted by very minor incidents, and the teams were able to quickly resume running in each case.

Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon and Karam all caused stoppages with spins, while the other red flag came out when Graham Rahal and Rodolfo Gonzalez made light contact with the wall within a couple of minutes of each other.

FREE PRACTICE TIMES

Pos Driver Team Car Gap Laps
1 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m16.2931s 23
2 Sage Karam Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 0.2004s 28
3 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 0.4762s 22
4 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 0.5803s 28
5 Helio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 0.6038s 22
6 Stefano Coletti KV Racing Technology Dallara/Chevrolet 0.6971s 27
7 Sebastien Bourdais KVSH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 0.8169s 26
8 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 0.8498s 20
9 Takuma Sato AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 0.8533s 22
10 Juan Pablo Montoya Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 0.9401s 22
11 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1.0858s 22
12 Jack Hawksworth AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 1.1957s 20
13 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 1.3418s 20
14 Josef Newgarden CFH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1.4166s 20
15 Luca Filippi CFH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1.4690s 24
16 James Jakes Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1.5713s 26
17 Charlie Kimball Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1.5969s 19
18 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1.6399s 19
19 Tristan Vautier Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1.8202s 21
20 Carlos Munoz Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 2.0779s 22
21 Conor Daly Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 2.1557s 25
22 Rodolfo Gonzalez Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 2.5208s 21
23 Gabby Chaves Bryan Herta Autosport Dallara/Honda 3.0253s 25


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