Barber IndyCar: Tristan Vautier sets practice pace then goes off
Tristan Vautier opened this weekend's IndyCar round at Barber Motorsports Park by setting the fastest time in Friday's first practice session
The rookie went to the top midway through the session with a lap of 1m.09.0120s, putting him 0.8 seconds under the official lap record held by Will Power, although the times were some way off those set at the Alabama track in testing last month.
As well as topping the timesheets, Vautier was also responsible for the only red flag of the session when he spun into the gravel at Turn 2 with five minutes remaining.
His car was undamaged, although the soggy conditions left from overnight rain led to some delays in retrieving his stricken Schmidt Peterson machine.
Second was Ganassi's Scott Dixon with a time 0.05s down on Vautier's, giving Honda-powered cars a one-two to kick off the weekend.
It would have been a one-two-three for the Japanese manufacturer, but Chevrolet-powered Ryan Hunter-Reay was able to improve his time in the five minutes that remained after the restart to jump ahead of Charlie Kimball, who had previously occupied third.
Kimball's time was still good enough for fourth ahead of Will Power, Dario Franchitti, Simona de Silvestro and Simon Pagenaud.
AJ Allendinger's competitive return to single-seaters began with him setting the ninth-best time, just shading Penske team-mate Helio Castroneves.
Pos Driver Team/Car Time Gap 1. Tristan Vautier Schmidt Dallara-Honda 1m09.0120s 2. Scott Dixon Ganassi Dallara-Honda 1m09.0646s + 0.0526s 3. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Dallara-Chevy 1m09.1917s + 0.1797s 4. Charlie Kimball Ganassi Dallara-Honda 1m09.2798s + 0.2678s 5. Will Power Penske Dallara-Chevy 1m09.2806s + 0.2686s 6. Dario Franchitti Ganassi Dallara-Honda 1m09.2883s + 0.2763s 7. Simona de Silvestro KV Dallara-Chevy 1m09.3396s + 0.3276s 8. Simon Pagenaud Schmidt Dallara-Honda 1m09.3443s + 0.3323s 9. AJ Allmendinger Penske Dallara-Chevy 1m09.3822s + 0.3702s 10. Helio Castroneves Penske Dallara-Chevy 1m09.4241s + 0.4121s 11. Oriol Servia Panther/DRR Dallara-Chevy 1m09.4456s + 0.4336s 12. James Jakes Rahal Dallara-Honda 1m09.4509s + 0.4389s 13. Takuma Sato Foyt Dallara-Honda 1m09.4812s + 0.4692s 14. Tony Kanaan KV Dallara-Chevy 1m09.4933s + 0.4813s 15. James Hinchcliffe Andretti Dallara-Chevy 1m09.5206s + 0.5086s 16. Josef Newgarden Fisher Dallara-Honda 1m09.6703s + 0.6583s 17. Marco Andretti Andretti Dallara-Chevy 1m09.6993s + 0.6873s 18. Sebastien Bourdais Dragon Dallara-Chevy 1m09.7329s + 0.7209s 19. Alex Tagliani Herta Dallara-Honda 1m09.7870s + 0.7750s 20. EJ Viso Andretti Dallara-Chevy 1m09.7962s + 0.7842s 21. Graham Rahal Rahal Dallara-Honda 1m09.8239s + 0.8119s 22. Justin Wilson Coyne Dallara-Honda 1m09.9008s + 0.8888s 23. JR Hildebrand Panther Dallara-Chevy 1m10.0602s + 1.0482s 24. Sebastian Saavedra Dragon Dallara-Chevy 1m10.1026s + 1.0906s 25. Ed Carpenter Carpenter Dallara-Chevy 1m11.0089s + 1.9969s 26. Ana Beatriz Coyne Dallara-Honda 1m12.2367s + 3.2247s
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