Bourdais back on top ahead of Penskes

Following overnight surgery on the new section of the track, the wall in Turn 8 has been changed to how it was in previous years, shallowing the turn by moving the apex wall by six feet. In addition, the smooth concrete patches in Turns 1 and 9 were sandblasted “in an effort to provide more consistent grip,” according to the official release.

The changes appeared to suit Bourdais, who lapped the course in 60.6035sec, an average speed of 106.093mph, beating his nearest rival by over a quarter-second despite being dissatisfied with the balance of his car.

He led a trio of Penske-Chevy entries, with Simon Pagenaud, Will Power and Helio Castroneves up next. The final two minutes of the session were a mad scramble, as Aleshin caused a red flag by wiping off some of his Schmidt Peterson Motorsport car’s aero appendages on a tire wall and grinding to a halt.

Yet Pagenaud, who had survived a couple of trips into the Turn 3 runoff, squeezed that time out in that restarted moment, as the only driver with a clear track.

Scott Dixon took fifth in the Chip Ganassi Racing-Chevrolet, four-tenths off Bourdais’ time, while fastest Honda driver was Jack Hawksworth in the AJ Foyt Racing machine, just ahead of Graham Rahal.

Charlie Kimball bounced back from his wall-smack yesterday to get into the Top 10, but the fourth Penske entry, that of Juan Pablo Montoya, still appeared to be struggling following his far harder shunt in Friday practice. After turning four laps, JPM spent the middle portion of the 45-minute session on pit road having adjustments made to his car. When he finally did emerge, he was 19^th fastest.

Series returnee Luca Filippi again impressed for Dale Coyne Racing-Honda, setting 12^th fastest time, ahead of all the Andretti Autosport team, while last week’s Iowa winner Josef Newgarden showed some improvement from yesterday, going 11^th fastest, 0.7sec off Bourdais’ top time.

Toronto - Third practice
P.	N°	Driver	Team (Engine)	Time/deficit
1	11	Sébastien Bourdais	KVSH (C)	1:00.6035
2	22	Simon Pagenaud	Penske (C)	0.2675
3	12	Will Power	Penske (C)	0.3122
4	3	Helio Castroneves	Penske (C)	0.3575
5	9	Scott Dixon	Ganassi (C)	0.3999
6	41	Jack Hawksworth	Foyt (H)	0.4418
7	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal (H)	0.5765
8	83	Charlie Kimball	Ganassi (C)	0.5922
9	7	Mikhail Aleshin	Schmidt (H)	0.6448
10	10	Tony Kanaan	Ganassi (C)	0.6677
11	21	Josef Newgarden	Carpenter (C)	0.7014
12	19	Luca Filippi	Coyne (H)	0.7126
13	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti (H)	0.7172
14	98	Alexander Rossi	Andretti-Herta (H)	0.8266
15	14	Takuma Sato	Foyt (H)	0.8748
16	26	Carlos Muñoz	Andretti (H)	0.8871
17	8	Max Chilton	Ganassi (C)	0.9773
18	5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt (H)	1.0040
19	2	Juan Pablo Montoya	Penske (C)	1.0573
20	18	Conor Daly	Coyne (H)	1.1257
21	27	Marco Andretti	Andretti (H)	1.2262
22	20	Spencer Pigot	Carpenter (C)	1.5403