Long Beach: Hunter-Reay tops opening IndyCar practice

Ryan Hunter-Reay
Ryan Hunter-Reay

Andretti Autosport Honda driver Ryan Hunter-Reay turned a lap of 1m07.9335s to top practice 1 of IndyCar practice on the streets as Honda powered cars swept the top-7 times.

“I think we started here with a pretty good baseline (setup)," Hunter-Reay said after the practice. “It’s good fun getting out there, getting the first session in the books. It’s a good place for us to start.

“It’s going to change every session (after) more and more of the Indy car Firestone rubber goes down. It’ll continue to change and everybody will continue to progress."

Scott Dixon was 2nd in the #9 Ganassi Honda with a time of 1m08.1039s.

Colton Herta, Graham Rahal and Alexander Rossi rounded out the top-5.

Last year's winner Alexander Rossi only got to run 5 laps when a cut tire sent him to the pits and the teams decided to not run anymore and save tires. The fact that he finished in the top-5 with so few laps run is mighty impressive.

Sunday’s 85-lap race will be the 36th for Indy cars at Long Beach, dating to Mario Andretti’s win in 1984.

Practice 1 Results.

Pos No Name FTime Diff Gap Laps Engine Team
1 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay 1:07.933 –.—- –.—- 13 Honda Andretti Autosport
2 9 Scott Dixon 1:08.104 0.1704 0.1704 16 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
3 88 Colton Herta 1:08.184 0.2509 0.0805 22 Honda Harding Steinbrenner Racing
4 15 Graham Rahal 1:08.350 0.4161 0.1652 14 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
5 27 Alexander Rossi 1:08.413 0.4799 0.0638 5 Honda Andretti Autosport
6 5 James Hinchcliffe 1:08.431 0.4979 0.0180 12 Honda Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
7 10 Felix Rosenqvist 1:08.465 0.5313 0.0334 24 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
8 22 Simon Pagenaud 1:08.517 0.5833 0.0520 21 Chevy Team Penske
9 2 Josef Newgarden 1:08.525 0.5911 0.0078 17 Chevy Team Penske
10 12 Will Power 1:08.577 0.6436 0.0525 19 Chevy Team Penske
11 4 Matheus Leist 1:08.596 0.6628 0.0192 15 Chevy AJ Foyt Enterprises
12 19 Santino Ferrucci 1:08.730 0.7960 0.1332 21 Honda Dale Coyne Racing
13 14 Tony Kanaan 1:08.792 0.8585 0.0625 13 Chevy AJ Foyt Enterprises
14 30 Takuma Sato 1:08.823 0.8900 0.0315 14 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
15 98 Marco Andretti 1:08.846 0.9122 0.0222 16 Honda Andretti Herta Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
16 31 Patricio O'Ward 1:08.846 0.9125 0.0003 22 Chevy Carlin
17 21 Spencer Pigot 1:08.912 0.9785 0.0660 15 Chevy Ed Carpenter Racing
18 26 Zach Veach 1:08.913 0.9797 0.0012 15 Honda Andretti Autosport
19 7 Marcus Ericsson 1:08.995 1.0616 0.0819 21 Honda Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsport
20 18 Sebastien Bourdais 1:09.019 1.0853 0.0237 14 Honda Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan
21 60 Jack Harvey 1:09.111 1.1771 0.0918 16 Honda Meyer Shank Racing with Arrow SPM
22 59 Max Chilton 1:09.129 1.1958 0.0187 14 Chevy Carlin
23 20 Ed Jones 1:09.288 1.3544 0.1586 16 Chevy Ed Carpenter Racing