Barber IndyCar: Pagenaud leads Penske top four sweep in practice
Reigning champion Simon Pagenaud set the pace in first practice for IndyCar's Barber Motorsports Park round, as Penske drivers filled the top four places
The 45-minute session was delayed by an hour following an incident at the fast Turn 3 in a support series practice session, which resulted in Armco barriers requiring repairs.
The delay has affected all of Friday's scheduled running in Alabama.
When IndyCar practice eventually started, Pagenaud led a Penske sweep of the top four, with team-mates Josef Newgarden, Will Power and Helio Castroneves just behind, all covered by three tenths.
Newgarden wound up 0.071 seconds behind Pagenaud's 1m08.110s benchmark, which was set early.
Alexander Rossi was the fastest Honda-powered driver, ahead of his Andretti Autosport team-mate Ryan Hunter-Reay.
Graham Rahal, James Hinchcliffe, Sebastien Bourdais and Scott Dixon completed the top 10, while the best Chevrolet runner other than the Penske quartet was Carlos Munoz in 13th.
With seven minutes to go, points leader Bourdais hit an advertising boarding, bringing out a red flag.
The session resumed with a few minutes remaining, prompting a flurry of on-track action, including Max Chilton blocking Pagenaud and Power and Rossi improving.
Mikhail Aleshin spun his Schmidt Peterson-Honda entry at Turn 2 earlier in the session, but got out of the gravel trap before causing a red flag.
He would repeat the slide later, but on that occasion managed to hold it, on his way to 11th.
Newcomer Zach Veach was slowest of the 21 runners, 2.524s off the overall pace and 1.652s behind Ed Carpenter Racing team-mate Spencer Pigot, as he steps in for the injured JR Hildebrand.
PRACTICE ONE RESULTS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Simon Pagenaud | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m08.1104s | - | 21 |
2 | Josef Newgarden | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m08.1822s | 0.0718s | 14 |
3 | Will Power | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m08.2186s | 0.1082s | 17 |
4 | Helio Castroneves | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m08.4112s | 0.3008s | 15 |
5 | Alexander Rossi | Andretti Herta | Dallara/Honda | 1m08.4560s | 0.3456s | 15 |
6 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | Andretti Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 1m08.5595s | 0.4491s | 10 |
7 | Graham Rahal | Rahal Letterman Lanigan | Dallara/Honda | 1m08.6142s | 0.5038s | 18 |
8 | James Hinchcliffe | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | Dallara/Honda | 1m08.6347s | 0.5243s | 11 |
9 | Sebastien Bourdais | Dale Coyne Racing | Dallara/Honda | 1m08.6737s | 0.5633s | 12 |
10 | Scott Dixon | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Honda | 1m08.6753s | 0.5649s | 14 |
11 | Mikhail Aleshin | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | Dallara/Honda | 1m08.7077s | 0.5973s | 15 |
12 | Marco Andretti | Andretti Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 1m08.7258s | 0.6154s | 10 |
13 | Carlos Munoz | AJ Foyt Enterprises | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m08.7488s | 0.6384s | 16 |
14 | Takuma Sato | Andretti Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 1m08.7627s | 0.6523s | 14 |
15 | Ed Jones | Dale Coyne Racing | Dallara/Honda | 1m08.8893s | 0.7789s | 12 |
16 | Spencer Pigot | Ed Carpenter Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m09.0092s | 0.8988s | 18 |
17 | Conor Daly | AJ Foyt Enterprises | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m09.0238s | 0.9134s | 15 |
18 | Tony Kanaan | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Honda | 1m09.0329s | 0.9225s | 15 |
19 | Charlie Kimball | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Honda | 1m09.0779s | 0.9675s | 16 |
20 | Max Chilton | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Honda | 1m09.1699s | 1.0595s | 15 |
21 | Zach Veach | Ed Carpenter Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m10.6346s | 2.5242s | 20 |
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