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Sonoma IndyCar: Andretti's Ryan Hunter-Reay flies in practice two

Ryan Hunter-Reay smashed the Sonoma lap record on his way to setting the fastest time in the second practice session for this weekend's IndyCar season finale

The Andretti driver reeled off a 1m16.8702s with his first flying lap, and the time remained unbeaten for the rest of the session.

The venue's single-lap qualifying record of 1m17.2393s was set by Will Power in the opening qualifying round last year.

However that time would only have been good enough for 12th-fastest on Saturday morning: seven drivers ended the session with times in the sub-1m17s range, with title contender Graham Rahal finishing up just 0.02 seconds off Hunter-Reay's time.

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver could potentially have gone faster still, based on a late radio message to his team suggesting that he'd made a small error on his last flying lap and cost himself several tenths.

Championship dark horse Josef Newgarden was third-fastest, just ahead of points leader Juan Pablo Montoya.

The session was punctuated by a few wild spins, including a lurid slide from Tony Kanaan, a big catch by Rahal in the Carousel, and a couple of trips into the grass by Kanaan's Ganassi team-mate Sebastian Saavedra.

None of the incidents resulted in contact, although Saavedra prompted the only red flag of the morning when his car came to a stop on the infield drag strip, forcing race control to call a halt to allow for its retrieval.

SATURDAY MORNING PRACTICE TIMES:

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap Laps
1 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m16.8702s - 8
2 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 1m16.8989s 0.0287s 11
3 Josef Newgarden CFH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m16.9269s 0.0567s 15
4 Juan Pablo Montoya Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m16.9301s 0.0599s 8
5 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m16.9343s 0.0641s 8
6 Helio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m16.9558s 0.0856s 6
7 Carlos Munoz Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m16.9671s 0.0969s 11
8 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m17.0230s 0.1528s 16
9 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m17.0893s 0.2191s 7
10 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m17.1196s 0.2494s 13
11 Sebastian Saavedra Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m17.2530s 0.3828s 15
12 Charlie Kimball Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m17.2884s 0.4182s 14
13 Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m17.3433s 0.4731s 13
14 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m17.3547s 0.4845s 8
15 Stefano Coletti KV Racing Technology Dallara/Chevrolet 1m17.4432s 0.5730s 17
16 Ryan Briscoe Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m17.4460s 0.5758s 18
17 Sebastien Bourdais KVSH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m17.6721s 0.8019s 8
18 Gabby Chaves Bryan Herta Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m17.6923s 0.8221s 17
19 Takuma Sato AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 1m17.7039s 0.8337s 15
20 Luca Filippi CFH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m17.8912s 1.0210s 16
21 Rodolfo Gonzalez Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1m18.0045s 1.1343s 16
22 Tristan Vautier Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1m18.1131s 1.2429s 14
23 Jack Hawksworth AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 1m18.2255s 1.3553s 11
24 Oriol Servia Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m18.3191s 1.4489s 14
25 James Jakes Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m18.6287s 1.7585s 14

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