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Juan Pablo Montoya tops first Long Beach IndyCar practice

Juan Pablo Montoya led team-mate Will Power in a Penske one-two in Friday morning practice for IndyCar's Long Beach round

Montoya, whose first CART race win came at the famous Californian street track in 1999, deposed early pacesetter Takuma Sato with a 1m08.3089s halfway through the session and later improved to a 1m08.1290s to cement his top spot.

Power ended up 0.2424 seconds adrift.

While Sato eventually fell to fifth, his AJ Foyt Racing team-mate Jack Hawksworth recovered from an early spin to jump to third late on.

Josef Newgarden split the Foyt cars, with James Hinchcliffe completing the top six.

Ryan Hunter-Reay and Scott Dixon led the Andretti and Ganassi teams respectively in seventh and 10th, sandwiching Helio Castroneves and Carlos Munoz.

Championship leader Simon Pagenaud kicked off his weekend with a conservative 18th.

Practice was red-flagged for a while so Alexander Rossi's Andretti entry could be retrieved from the tyre wall after he crashed at the Turn 8 right-hander leading onto the back straight.

Fellow young American Charlie Kimball had an incident at the other end of that straight in the final minutes when he slid down the escape road and his Ganassi Dallara-Chevrolet's front brakes caught fire as he tried to navigate his way back out.

PRACTICE ONE TIMES

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap Laps
1 Juan Pablo Montoya Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m08.1290s - 14
2 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m08.3714s 0.2424s 18
3 Jack Hawksworth AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 1m08.4839s 0.3549s 11
4 Josef Newgarden Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m08.6050s 0.4760s 18
5 Takuma Sato AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 1m08.7097s 0.5807s 11
6 James Hinchcliffe Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m08.7565s 0.6275s 15
7 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m08.7614s 0.6324s 16
8 Helio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m08.8984s 0.7694s 15
9 Carlos Munoz Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m08.9080s 0.7790s 17
10 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m08.9511s 0.8221s 13
11 Sebastien Bourdais KVSH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m08.9621s 0.8331s 16
12 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 1m08.9825s 0.8535s 17
13 Charlie Kimball Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m09.0566s 0.9276s 17
14 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m09.2039s 1.0749s 18
15 Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m09.2190s 1.0900s 19
16 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m09.2330s 1.1040s 14
17 Conor Daly Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1m09.3633s 1.2343s 20
18 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m09.4132s 1.2842s 14
19 Max Chilton Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m09.5736s 1.4446s 19
20 Luca Filippi Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1m09.6863s 1.5573s 18
21 Alexander Rossi Andretti Herta Dallara/Honda 1m10.0221s 1.8931s 8


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