Kanaan heads day one at Sebring

Kanaan, testing what he called 'big, big' changes on his No. 11 Andretti Green Racing Honda/Dallara, led the field during testing Monday at Sebring International Raceway.

His fastest lap of 53.5174 seconds (112.337 mph) on a 1.7-mile, 11-turn portion of the famous road course was better than the other eight drivers in the shortened field.

"We're testing a lot of things," Kanaan said. "We're trying big, big things that we did some simulation over the winter and thought were better. Changing big things in the car takes an hour, sometimes two hours. This is the time to do it, because we won't have time when we get to St. Pete.

"It's the last two days, now it's down to one day before the season starts and before we go to St. Pete. I would say it's going well."

Nine drivers from Andretti Green Racing, Rahal Letterman Racing, Vision Racing and Roth Racing totaled 554 laps. Testing will continue Tuesday, with the other half of the IndyCar field scheduled to test at Sebring on Wednesday and Thursday.

Following Kanaan on the time sheet was teammate Marco Andretti at 53.8378 seconds, AGR rookie Hideki Mutoh at 53.8716, and Rahal Letterman's Ryan Hunter-Reay at 54.1880. Danica Patrick, who was fastest last week in the second night of a two-night test on the Homestead oval, was fifth-fastest Monday at Sebring.

The IndyCar season opens March 29 at Homestead.