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Fontana IndyCar: Hinchcliffe's Schmidt sub Briscoe leads practice

Ryan Briscoe set the pace in the opening practice session for Saturday's IndyCar race at Fontana

The Australian, who is filling in for the injured James Hinchcliffe at Schmidt, moved into first place in the final minutes with an average speed of 217.451mph and a time of 33.1109 seconds.

Up until that point the driver to beat had been Marco Andretti, but his 217.316mph effort was still enough to keep him in second place on the timing screens for a Honda 1-2.

Simon Pagenaud led the way for Chevrolet at 217.134mph, closely followed by Ganassi duo Charlie Kimball and Tony Kanaan.

A mostly uneventful session was punctuated just twice by yellow flags, both of which were for debris. An extra five minutes of green flag time was added on to compensate for the lost time.

In the absence of any on-track incidents, the story of the morning was the heat - temperatures were already in the mid-30s at 9:30am - and the high degree of tyre degradation, with speeds falling significantly after just a few laps.

Earlier, the track was opened for an hour-long rookie orientation session for Gabby Chaves, Sage Karam and Stefano Coletti. Chaves ended the morning as the quickest of that trio.

PRACTICE ONE TIMES:

Pos Driver Team Car Speed Time Gap
1 Ryan Briscoe Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 217.451 33.1109s -
2 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 217.316 33.1315s 0.0206s
3 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 217.134 33.1593s 0.0484s
4 Charlie Kimball Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 217.016 33.1773s 0.0664s
5 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 216.975 33.1836s 0.0727s
6 Josef Newgarden CFH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 216.310 33.2856s 0.1747s
7 Carlos Munoz Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 215.811 33.3626s 0.2517s
8 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 215.693 33.3808s 0.2699s
9 Juan Pablo Montoya Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 215.589 33.3969s 0.2860s
10 Takuma Sato AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 215.159 33.4636s 0.3527s
11 Helio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 214.740 33.5289s 0.4180s
12 Gabby Chaves Bryan Herta Autosport Dallara/Honda 214.578 33.5542s 0.4433s
13 Sage Karam Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 214.449 33.5744s 0.4635s
14 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 214.440 33.5759s 0.4650s
15 James Jakes Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 214.353 33.5895s 0.4786s
16 Ed Carpenter CFH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 214.089 33.6309s 0.5200s
17 Tristan Vautier Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 213.999 33.6450s 0.5341s
18 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 213.220 33.7679s 0.6570s
19 Stefano Coletti KV Racing Technology Dallara/Chevrolet 213.103 33.7865s 0.6756s
20 Jack Hawksworth AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 213.087 33.7890s 0.6781s
21 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 212.517 33.8797s 0.7688s
22 Sebastien Bourdais KVSH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 212.451 33.8901s 0.7792s
23 Pippa Mann Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 210.802 34.1553s 1.0444s


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