Long Beach IndyCar: James Hinchcliffe pips Mike Conway in practice

Conway, making a one-off IndyCar return in a third Rahal Letterman Lanigan entry this weekend, held the top spot for much of the morning before Hinchcliffe unseated him with a 1m09.8157s effort in his Andretti car.

That cleared Conway's time by 0.0133 seconds, leaving the Brit second-fastest ahead of Foyt's Takuma Sato, who had also vaulted up the order in the final minutes.

Simona de Silvestro owned the second-fastest time during the first half of the session before eventually finishing up fourth on the timesheets ahead of Ryan Hunter-Reay, Justin Wilson and Scott Dixon.

The only incident came with two minutes remaining when Josef Newgarden skated into the Turn 9 run-off and stalled, prompting race control to end the session early.

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                   Time        Gap
 1.  James Hinchcliffe    Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m09.8157s
 2.  Mike Conway          Rahal Dallara-Honda        1m09.8290s  + 0.0133s
 3.  Takuma Sato          Foyt Dallara-Honda         1m10.0180s  + 0.2023s
 4.  Simona de Silvestro  KV Dallara-Chevy           1m10.0767s  + 0.2610s
 5.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m10.0834s  + 0.2677s
 6.  Justin Wilson        Coyne Dallara-Honda        1m10.1028s  + 0.2871s
 7.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m10.1479s  + 0.3322s
 8.  Graham Rahal         Rahal Dallara-Honda        1m10.1906s  + 0.3749s
 9.  Josef Newgarden      Fisher Dallara-Honda       1m10.2081s  + 0.3924s
10.  JR Hildebrand        Panther Dallara-Chevy      1m10.4001s  + 0.5844s
11.  James Jakes          Rahal Dallara-Honda        1m10.4236s  + 0.6079s
12.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt Dallara-Honda      1m10.4703s  + 0.6546s
13.  Will Power           Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m10.4809s  + 0.6652s
14.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m10.4976s  + 0.6819s
15.  Helio Castroneves    Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m10.6486s  + 0.8329s
16.  Tony Kanaan          KV Dallara-Chevy           1m10.7120s  + 0.8963s
17.  Marco Andretti       Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m10.7322s  + 0.9165s
18.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m10.8156s  + 0.9999s
19.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dragon Dallara-Chevy       1m10.8196s  + 1.0039s
20.  EJ Viso              Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m10.8341s  + 1.0184s
21.  Tristan Vautier      Schmidt Dallara-Honda      1m10.8972s  + 1.0815s
22.  Ana Beatriz          Coyne Dallara-Honda        1m11.0011s  + 1.1854s
23.  Alex Tagliani        Herta Dallara-Honda        1m11.0580s  + 1.2423s
24.  Oriol Servia         Panther/DRR Dallara-Chevy  1m11.0586s  + 1.2429s
25.  Sebastian Saavedra   Dragon Dallara-Chevy       1m11.0693s  + 1.2536s
26.  AJ Allmendinger      Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m11.1686s  + 1.3529s
27.  Ed Carpenter         Carpenter Dallara-Chevy    1m12.2408s  + 2.4251s