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Alexander Rossi tops red-flagged first Road America IndyCar session

Alexander Rossi headed a trio of Team Penske drivers in a truncated first IndyCar practice session at Road America that was effectively ended early after Ryan Hunter-Reay crashed

Rossi set a fastest time of 1m43.3285s around the 4.048-mile circuit, the longest on the IndyCar calendar, in his Andretti Autosport Dallara-Honda midway through the 45-minute session.

That remained the best effort before Hunter-Reay spun at the fast Turn 14 right-hander at the end of the lap in the final 10 minutes, with the session red flagged as a result.

Reigning champion Simon Pagenaud was the fastest of the Penske runners and best-placed of the Chevrolet-powered cars in second, 0.234 seconds behind Rossi.

Will Power, the only previous winner at Road America in the field, was third and a further two tenths behind his team-mate having been fastest in the early part of the session.

Josef Newgarden was fourth, close to half a second down on Rossi's benchmark, ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon and Schmidt Peterson Motorsport's James Hinchcliffe.

Max Chilton was seventh ahead of Hunter-Reay, with Marco Andretti ninth and fourth Penske driver Helio Castroneves rounding out the top 10.

Hinchcliffe's team-mate for the session was fellow Canadian Robert Wickens.

The Mercedes DTM driver is standing in for Mikhail Aleshin for Friday's practice sessions, and was 20th of the 21 runners.

Aleshin had been unable to leave France due to visa issues after competing in the Le Mans 24 Hours last weekend, but was expected to travel back to the US on Friday evening.

FIRST PRACTICE RESULTS:

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap Laps
1 Alexander Rossi Andretti Herta Dallara/Honda 1m43.3285s - 7
2 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m43.5625s 0.2340s 9
3 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m43.7508s 0.4223s 11
4 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m43.7780s 0.4495s 9
5 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 1m43.8994s 0.5709s 8
6 James Hinchcliffe Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m43.9047s 0.5762s 8
7 Max Chilton Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 1m44.0483s 0.7198s 11
8 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m44.0681s 0.7396s 8
9 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m44.0967s 0.7682s 9
10 Helio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m44.3249s 0.9964s 8
11 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 1m44.4590s 1.1305s 9
12 Charlie Kimball Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 1m44.4748s 1.1463s 10
13 Ed Jones Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1m44.5882s 1.2597s 11
14 Carlos Munoz AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Chevrolet 1m44.6224s 1.2939s 10
15 Spencer Pigot Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m44.7711s 1.4426s 10
16 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 1m44.9998s 1.6713s 8
17 Takuma Sato Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m45.3601s 2.0316s 8
18 J.R. Hildebrand Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m45.6062s 2.2777s 11
19 Esteban Gutierrez Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1m45.6257s 2.2972s 4
20 Robert Wickens Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m45.6823s 2.3538s 11
21 Conor Daly AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Chevrolet 1m45.6920s 2.3635s 9


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