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Sonoma IndyCar: Will Power fastest for Penske in Friday practice

Will Power was fastest for Penske in the marathon three-and-a-half hour opening IndyCar session at Sonoma on Friday

The reigning champion was on top for most of the afternoon, finally settling on a 1m17.4858s effort that was less than 0.1 seconds off his pole time from last year.

"That was an interesting session," Power said.

"It's the first time we got to try that new [compound] tyre on a long run and it definitely degrades a lot, so I think that's going to create really good racing.

"Obviously [qualifying] tomorrow is what really counts, but I think we're in a good window.

"We'll just go home, study, and see if we can make some good changes to go a little bit faster."

Graham Rahal's hopes of toppling Juan Pablo Montoya's championship bid got off to an encouraging start: the Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver was unhappy with his car early in the session, but climbed up to second once the team had made some changes.

"I think it was a good start for us," he said.

"The beginning wasn't very good; we made some changes from the [recent] test and were struggling pretty bad there.

"But we got the car turned around; made some major changes and the car was a lot better."

Ryan Hunter-Reay rounded out the top three, while Montoya finished up in ninth.

Oriol Servia, who was called up to drive Justin Wilson's #25 Andretti Autosport entry, had an inauspicious start to the day when his car stopped at Turn 2 on his out-lap, prompting the only stoppage of the session, but he later returned to complete a total of 33 laps.

Fellow series returnee Mikhail Aleshin finished the afternoon 17th-fastest in the second Schmidt entry.

FRIDAY PRACTICE TIMES:

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap Laps
1 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m17.4858s - 47
2 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 1m17.6184s 0.1326s 33
3 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m17.6423s 0.1565s 33
4 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m17.7937s 0.3079s 40
5 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m17.8827s 0.3969s 33
6 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m17.9908s 0.5050s 45
7 Helio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m18.0033s 0.5175s 59
8 Charlie Kimball Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m18.0635s 0.5777s 42
9 Juan Pablo Montoya Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m18.0901s 0.6043s 41
10 Sebastien Bourdais KVSH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m18.1390s 0.6532s 50
11 Carlos Munoz Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m18.1529s 0.6671s 34
12 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m18.1558s 0.6700s 30
13 Josef Newgarden CFH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m18.1594s 0.6736s 36
14 Ryan Briscoe Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m18.1649s 0.6791s 42
15 Gabby Chaves Bryan Herta Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m18.2388s 0.7530s 45
16 Sebastian Saavedra Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m18.3924s 0.9066s 40
17 Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m18.4491s 0.9633s 32
18 Jack Hawksworth AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 1m18.4625s 0.9767s 45
19 Takuma Sato AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 1m18.6520s 1.1662s 42
20 Tristan Vautier Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1m18.9471s 1.4613s 20
21 James Jakes Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m19.0050s 1.5192s 37
22 Rodolfo Gonzalez Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1m19.1607s 1.6749s 55
23 Luca Filippi CFH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m19.2210s 1.7352s 47
24 Stefano Coletti KV Racing Technology Dallara/Chevrolet 1m19.2787s 1.7929s 23
25 Oriol Servia Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m19.6981s 2.2123s 33

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