IndyCar Long Beach: Pagenaud leads opening practice

Pagenaud, the 2016 Long Beach winner, clocked a 1m07.1991s in the session, eclipsing two-time Long Beach winner Alexander Rossi of Andretti Autosport by 0.4021s. Pagenaud's best time was two seconds quicker than Colton Herta's first practice time from last year's Long Beach in September.

Apart from the usual problems of drivers outbraking themselves and having harmless trips to run-off zones – Ganassi’s Scott Dixon and the Andretti cars of Romain Grosjean and Colton Herta were three high-profile candidates – the main incidents were caused by Jimmie Johnson who nosed into a tire wall after grabbing too much curb on corner entry, and Dalton Kellett who spun and stalled. Both incidents required a red flag.

Pato O’Ward smacked his left-rear against the wall and gave himself a puncture and a broken toe-link but the Arrow McLaren SP driver re-emerged and he swiftly got on his team-mate Felix Rosenqvist’s pace, although the pair were only 14^th and 15^th.

Behind Pagenaud and Rossi was series sophomore and St. Petersburg winner Scott McLaughlin who emerged as fastest of the Chevrolet drivers, just ahead of Team Penske team-mate Josef Newgarden.

Quickest of the Ganassi drivers was Marcus Ericsson, who edged ahead of Colton Herta, defending series champion Alex Palou and two-time Long Beach victor Will Power in the third of the Penske entries.

Two stars of the show were rookies Callum Ilott of Juncos Hollinger Racing and Kyle Kirkwood of AJ Foyt Racing, who both squeezed into the top 10, taking advantage of their extra sets of Firestone tyres.

They led two series veterans, Dixon and Helio Castroneves, while Jack Harvey's return after missing the Texas race due to a shunt saw him finish the day in 17th, behind one of his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team-mates Graham Rahal, but ahead of quick rookie Christian Lundgaard.

IndyCar Long Beach - FP1 results

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	18	1'07.199
2	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	22	1'07.601	0.402	0.402
3	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	19	1'07.672	0.472	0.070
4	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	18	1'07.728	0.529	0.056
5	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	17	1'07.842	0.643	0.114
6	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	21	1'07.878	0.679	0.035
7	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	16	1'07.911	0.712	0.033
8	Will Power	Team Penske	21	1'08.000	0.800	0.088
9	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	23	1'08.020	0.821	0.020
10	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	20	1'08.022	0.823	0.002
11	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	15	1'08.047	0.848	0.025
12	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	16	1'08.157	0.958	0.110
13	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	14	1'08.173	0.974	0.015
14	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	9	1'08.414	1.215	0.241
15	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	17	1'08.461	1.262	0.046
16	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD	20	1'08.483	1.284	0.022
17	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	18	1'08.579	1.380	0.096
18	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	19	1'08.700	1.501	0.120
19	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	18	1'08.700	1.501	0.000
20	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	13	1'08.770	1.571	0.069
21	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	20	1'08.773	1.574	0.003
22	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	21	1'08.840	1.641	0.067
23	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	20	1'09.072	1.873	0.232
24	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing	17	1'09.246	2.046	0.173
25	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	7	1'09.620	2.421	0.374
26	Tatiana Calderon	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	18	1'09.982	2.783	0.362
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