Dixon edges Hunter-Reay in third Toronto IndyCar practice
Scott Dixon narrowly edged out Ryan Hunter-Reay to set the quickest time in the third IndyCar practice session in Toronto
On a drying track, the Ganassi team left it until the final minutes to do any meaningful running - Dixon did not even leave the pitlane until there were only six minutes of the hour-long session remaining - but it was enough for the New Zealander to set the standard with a best lap of 1m00.3841s.
Hunter-Reay (Andretti) fell short of Dixon's time by just 0.0099s, with Simon Pagenaud (Schmidt Hamilton) and Will Power (Penske Racing) a further 0.2s in arrears.
Sebastien Bourdais (Dragon), who led much of the middle phase of the session when the track was just starting to develop a dry line, finished up with the fifth-best time ahead of Ganassi's Dario Franchitti and Andretti's James Hinchcliffe.
The changing conditions gave plenty of drivers an opportunity to put themselves at the top of the timing screens, with Rubens Barrichello (KV Racing), EK Viso (KV Racing), Takuma Sato (Rahal Letterman Lanigan), Tony Kanaan (KV Rcing), Mike Conway (AJ Foyt Racing), JR Hildebrand (Panther Racing) and Bourdais all setting early benchmarks, although the final order was dictated largely by who managed to make the best of the dry conditions at the end.
Despite the slippery track surface there were only two brief stoppages for spins from Josef Newgarden (Sarah Fisher Hartman) and Hunter-Reay, although both were able to quickly resume running.
Pos Driver Team/Car Time Gap 1. Scott Dixon Ganassi DW12-Honda 1m00.3841s 2. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti DW12-Chevy 1m00.3940s + 0.0099s 3. Simon Pagenaud Schmidt DW12-Honda 1m00.6065s + 0.2224s 4. Will Power Penske DW12-Chevy 1m00.6151s + 0.2310s 5. Sebastien Bourdais Dragon DW12-Chevy 1m00.7582s + 0.3741s 6. Dario Franchitti Ganassi DW12-Honda 1m00.8110s + 0.4269s 7. James Hinchcliffe Andretti DW12-Chevy 1m00.8141s + 0.4300s 8. Oriol Servia Dreyer & Reinbold DW12-Chevy 1m00.8372s + 0.4531s 9. Mike Conway Foyt DW12-Honda 1m00.8973s + 0.5132s 10. Charlie Kimball Ganassi DW12-Honda 1m00.9111s + 0.5270s 11. Graham Rahal Ganassi DW12-Honda 1m00.9762s + 0.5921s 12. Helio Castroneves Penske DW12-Chevy 1m00.9925s + 0.6084s 13. EJ Viso KV DW12-Chevy 1m01.0524s + 0.6683s 14. Ryan Briscoe Penske DW12-Chevy 1m01.1460s + 0.7619s 15. JR Hildebrand Panther DW12-Chevy 1m01.2397s + 0.8556s 16. Marco Andretti Andretti DW12-Chevy 1m01.2811s + 0.8970s 17. Josef Newgarden Fisher DW12-Honda 1m01.3543s + 0.9702s 18. Simona de Silvestro HVM DW12-Lotus 1m01.3562s + 0.9721s 19. Rubens Barrichello KV DW12-Chevy 1m01.3702s + 0.9861s 20. Alex Tagliani Herta DW12-Honda 1m01.3930s + 1.0089s 21. James Jakes Dale Coyne DW12-Honda 1m01.4600s + 1.0759s 22. Takuma Sato Rahal DW12-Honda 1m01.5618s + 1.1777s 23. Justin Wilson Dale Coyne DW12-Honda 1m01.5800s + 1.1959s 24. Ed Carpenter Carpenter DW12-Chevy 1m02.5826s + 2.1985s 25. Tony Kanaan KV DW12-Chevy 1m07.4226s + 7.0385s
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