Bourdais tops first practice at Toronto

The KVSH Racing-Chevrolet driver lapped the course in 62.929sec, a lap speed of 102.9290mph to narrowly edge reigning champion Scott Dixon in the #9 Chip Ganassi Racing-Chevy.

Championship leader Simon Pagenaud was third for Team Penske-Chevy, ahead of the top Honda drivers, Takuma Sato (AJ Foyt Racing) and Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing).

The cars were visibly shuffling, bouncing and sliding through the new Turns 9/10/11 complex as surface changes brought on by local development have also seen the pits complex switch to the outside of the main straight. Pit entry is now to the left of Turn 9 rather than the right of Turn 10.

These additional surface changes on a track already renowned for them, had drivers tip-toeing through at first, and experimenting as the session went on. And the pit crews were kept busy adjusting spring rates, camber, and toe in/out.

The track alterations have increased the track length slightly, from 1.755 to 1.785 miles.

Will Power, another two-time Toronto winner, was sixth fastest for Penske, while top of the rookies was Indy 500 winner Alexander Rossi, who slotted his Andretti Autosport-Honda into 10^th, two places behind teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Defending Toronto winner and last week’s Iowa victor Josef Newgarden was only 15^th, one place and 0.2sec ahead of teammate Spencer Pigot, who resumes in Ed Carpenter Racing #20 as the series returns to road/street courses.

Another driver making a return is Luca Filippi of Dale Coyne Racing, who last year finished second for ECR at Toronto. For DCR this morning, he was 18^th, two places ahead of teammate Conor Daly.

The DCR pair were split by local hero James Hinchcliffe who was about half a second off Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda teammate Mikhail Aleshin.

Toronto - Practice 1
P.	N°	Driver	Team (Engine)	Time/deficit
1	11	Sébastien Bourdais	KVSH (C)	1:02.9290
2	9	Scott Dixon	Ganassi (C)	0.0448
3	22	Simon Pagenaud	Penske (C)	0.1956
4	14	Takuma Sato	Foyt (H)	0.2635
5	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal (H)	0.3346
6	12	Will Power	Penske (C)	0.3919
7	10	Tony Kanaan	Ganassi (C)	0.4188
8	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti (H)	0.4694
9	3	Helio Castroneves	Penske (C)	0.5624
10	7	Mikhail Aleshin	Schmidt (H)	0.5895
11	98	Alexander Rossi	Andretti-Herta (H)	0.6271
12	27	Marco Andretti	Andretti (H)	0.7167
13	2	Juan Pablo Montoya	Penske (C)	0.7567
14	83	Charlie Kimball	Ganassi (C)	0.7911
15	21	Josef Newgarden	Carpenter (C)	0.8062
16	20	Spencer Pigot	Carpenter (C)	0.9983
17	26	Carlos Muñoz	Andretti (H)	1.0036
18	19	Luca Filippi	Coyne (H)	1.0462
19	5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt (H)	1.0817
20	18	Conor Daly	Coyne (H)	1.2716
21	41	Jack Hawksworth	Foyt (H)	1.3056
22	8	Max Chilton	Ganassi (C)	2.5863