Scott Dixon tops opening IndyCar practice session of 2012 at St Petersburg for Ganassi

The Chip Ganassi Racing team waited until the hour-long session was half over before sending Dixon and team-mate Dario Franchitti out onto the track, and Dixon set his best time of 1m03.0406s with 11 minutes still on the clock.

Up to that point, Penske driver Ryan Briscoe had been the pace-setter, his best lap of 1m03.5190s ultimately proving 0.4784s shy of Dixon's best, but still good enough to keep the Australian ahead of the rest of the field.

Briscoe's team-mate Will Power was third quickest ahead of Franchitti, whose session was punctuated with a brief trip down the escape road at Turn 10.

Rookie Simon Pagenaud was fifth in his Schmidt-Hamilton entry with Justin Wilson (who held the top spot early on in his Dale Coyne Dallara-Honda), Marco Andretti (Andretti), Mike Conway (Foyt), Graham Rahal (Ganassi) and Helio Castroneves (Penske) rounding out the top 10.

Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing's Josef Newgarden did not make it onto the track until there were less than 10 minutes left to run, but he still managed to post the 11th-quickest time.

Oriol Servia was the quickest of the Lotus-powered entries in 19th, his Dreyer & Reinbold car finishing up 1.2s off Dixon's benchmark, while F1 veteran Rubens Barrichello started his IndyCar career with the 24th-fastest time.

Ganassi driver Charlie Kimball was at the centre of the only major incident of the morning when he ran wide at the exit of Turn 10 and hit the tyre wall. The American was unharmed, and with just a few seconds left before the chequered flag, the accident had no significant impact upon the session.


Pos  Driver               Team/Car/Engine            Time        Gap
 1.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi DW12-Honda         1m03.0406s
 2.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske DW12-Chevrolet      1m03.5190s  + 0.4784s
 3.  Will Power           Penske DW12-Chevrolet      1m03.5747s  + 0.5341s
 4.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi DW12-Honda         1m03.6013s  + 0.5607s
 5.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt DW12-Honda         1m03.6417s  + 0.6011s
 6.  Justin Wilson        Coyne DW12-Honda           1m03.6704s  + 0.6298s
 7.  Marco Andretti       Andretti DW12-Chevrolet    1m03.7928s  + 0.7522s
 8.  Mike Conway          Foyt DW12-Honda            1m03.8333s  + 0.7927s
 9.  Graham Rahal         Ganassi DW12-Honda         1m03.8522s  + 0.8116s
10.  Helio Castroneves    Penske DW12-Chevrolet      1m03.8728s  + 0.8322s
11.  Josef Newgarden      Fisher DW12-Honda          1m03.8772s  + 0.8366s
12.  EJ Viso              KV DW12-Chevrolet          1m03.9142s  + 0.8736s
13.  James Jakes          Coyne DW12-Honda           1m03.9634s  + 0.9228s
14.  JR Hildebrand        Panther DW12-Chevrolet     1m04.0914s  + 1.0508s
15.  Takuma Sato          Rahal DW12-Honda           1m04.1072s  + 1.0666s
16.  James Hinchcliffe    Andretti DW12-Chevrolet    1m04.1079s  + 1.0673s
17.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti DW12-Chevrolet    1m04.1239s  + 1.0833s
18.  Tony Kanaan          KV DW12-Chevrolet          1m04.1404s  + 1.0998s
19.  Oriol Servia         Dreyer Reinbold DW12-Lotus 1m04.2946s  + 1.2540s
20.  Alex Tagliani        BHA DW12-Lotus             1m04.3861s  + 1.3455s
21.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dragon DW12-Lotus          1m04.4874s  + 1.4468s
22.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi DW12-Honda         1m04.6632s  + 1.6226s
23.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM DW12-Lotus             1m04.9147s  + 1.8741s
24.  Rubens Barrichello   KV DW12-Chevrolet          1m05.6681s  + 2.6275s
25.  Ed Carpenter         Carpenter DW12-Chevrolet   1m06.0310s  + 2.9904s
26.  Katherine Legge      Dragon DW12-Lotus          1m07.3331s  + 4.2925s