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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