Herta stays top of IndyCar Spring Training with startling lap

At the time, with 67mins of the three hour session still to run, Herta’s time was an amazing 1.4sec quicker than his nearest opposition.

Team Penske’s Will Power whittled that deficit down to 0.48sec three laps from the end, but then spun coming to the final turn.

"I'm super happy with how the day went," said Herta, 2018 Indy Lights runner-up. "We did some great things to the car and I'm very happy with how the boys got everything together in time for this test.

"Everyone did a fantastic job and there were no issues with the car; it was perfect. We kept chipping away and kept finding time. By the end of the day, we were quickest by quite a margin. I can't wait for tomorrow now."

Power's temporary – and previous – teammate Helio Castroneves in a fourth Penske, was allowed to halt his full-fuel load runs to jump up to third place, albeit 1sec off the ultimate lap from Herta.

Rookie Felix Rosenqvist outpaced Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda teammate by 0.0023sec to grab fourth spot, while Simon Pagenaud made it three Penskes in the top six win

Alexander Rossi was fastest of the Andretti Autosport-Hondas in seventh place, a couple of tenths faster than Graham Rahal who showed major improvement from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s form at the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca test last Friday.

Dale Coyne Racing’s Santino Ferrucci did a fine job to slot into ninth ahead of Ed Carpenter Racing’s Spencer Pigot who, along with Rosenqvist turned the most laps of the session (38).

Marcus Ericsson and James Hinchcliffe were 11^th and 12^th for Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, ahead of Josef Newgarden in the fourth Penske entry.

Ryan Hunter-Reay, who had to have a tow-in early in the three-hour session, narrowly edged teammate Marco Andretti, while RC Enerson was 18^th in the faster of the two Carlin-Chevys.

Ed Jones pipped former teammate Bourdais to ninth, while Kyle Kaiser’s Juncos Racing entry was 24^th, 3.25sec off Herta’s pace after missing the morning session.

Tony Kanaan’s AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy lunched its gearbox, so he only completed six laps.

P	No	Name	FTime	Diff	Gap	FL	Laps	LapTime	LPit	ST	FSpeed	Elapsed	Engine	Tire	Points	Team
1	88	Colton Herta	1:46.626	--.----	--.----	11	22	1:55.024	21	24	115.132	2:59:36.720	Honda	P	27	Harding Steinbrenner Racing
2	12	Will Power	1:47.104	0.4786	0.4786	27	28	1:48.244	25	16	114.617	2:58:04.112	Chevy	P	10	Team Penske
3	3	Helio Castroneves	1:47.695	1.0691	0.5905	35	36	2:06.033	33	22	113.989	2:58:15.408	Chevy	P	2	Team Penske
4	10	Felix Rosenqvist	1:48.045	1.4193	0.3502	27	38	2:15.156	35	5	113.619	3:00:27.551	Honda	P	8	Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
5	9	Scott Dixon	1:48.047	1.4216	0.0023	22	28	1:50.989	27	4	113.617	2:53:50.376	Honda	P	7	Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
6	22	Simon Pagenaud	1:48.058	1.4324	0.0108	23	33	2:05.953	29	18	113.605	3:00:23.929	Chevy	P	17	Team Penske
7	27	Alexander Rossi	1:48.122	1.4958	0.0634	22	30	1:49.897	29	11	113.539	2:57:13.635	Honda	P	21	Andretti Autosport
8	15	Graham Rahal	1:48.341	1.7152	0.2194	25	32	1:53.344	31	17	113.309	2:59:08.656	Honda	P	12	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
9	19	Santino Ferrucci	1:48.385	1.7593	0.0441	16	22	1:49.844	21	9	113.263	2:58:30.747	Honda	P	14	Dale Coyne Racing
10	21	Spencer Pigot	1:48.399	1.7729	0.0136	20	38	1:48.827	36	3	113.249	2:58:37.400	Chevy	P	16	Ed Carpenter Racing
11	7	Marcus Ericsson	1:48.406	1.7799	0.0070	22	28	1:50.884	25	25	113.241	2:56:55.838	Honda	P	5	Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsport
12	5	James Hinchcliffe	1:48.410	1.7843	0.0044	27	28	1:53.800	25	20	113.237	2:54:52.889	Honda	P	4	Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
13	2	Josef Newgarden	1:48.421	1.7952	0.0109	17	22	1:50.207	21	23	113.225	2:58:26.278	Chevy	P	1	Team Penske
14	26	Zach Veach	1:48.569	1.9435	0.1483	22	26	1:49.728	24	13	113.071	2:55:44.945	Honda	P	20	Andretti Autosport
15	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	1:48.710	2.0838	0.1403	20	21	1:49.256	19	12	112.925	2:42:33.834	Honda	P	22	Andretti Autosport
16	98	Marco Andretti	1:48.714	2.0885	0.0047	15	20	1:50.215	19	15	112.920	2:57:36.908	Honda	P	28	Andretti Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian
17	60	Jack Harvey	1:48.901	2.2757	0.1872	27	27	1:48.901	24	8	112.726	2:58:20.517	Honda	P	25	Meyer Shank Racing with Arrow SPM
18	23	RC Enerson	1:48.996	2.3697	0.0940	15	27	1:50.201	24	19	112.629	2:43:30.517	Chevy	P	18	Carlin
19	20	Ed Jones	1:49.208	2.5819	0.2122	19	28	1:48.975	26	10	112.410	2:58:49.238	Chevy	P	15	Ed Carpenter Racing
20	18	Sebastien Bourdais	1:49.223	2.5973	0.0154	23	30	1:48.924	27	7	112.394	2:58:59.463	Honda	P	13	Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan
21	59	Max Chilton	1:49.266	2.6403	0.0430	29	30	1:55.928	26	14	112.350	2:55:31.333	Chevy	P	24	Carlin
22	4	Matheus Leist	1:49.498	2.8717	0.2314	11	17	2:07.782	16	1	112.112	2:59:54.320	Chevy	P	3	AJ Foyt Enterprises
23	30	Takuma Sato	1:49.524	2.8981	0.0264	11	19	2:14.076	17	2	112.085	3:00:09.071	Honda	P	23	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
24	32	Kyle Kaiser	1:49.875	3.2489	0.3508	34	34	1:49.875	32	21	111.727	2:46:48.326	Chevy	Po	9	Juncos Racing
25	14	Tony Kanaan	1:51.079	4.4533	1.2044	6	6	1:51.079	5	6	110.516	41:10.484	Chevy	P	11	AJ Foyt Enterprises