Long Beach IndyCar: Herta leads warm-up

Herta, who set his time on Firestone’s red alternate compound tires, set a best time of 67.1053sec, an average speed of 105.577mph around the classic 1.968-mile street course.

All four Andretti Autosport cars were in the top 10, with Andretti closely followed by Ryan Hunter-Reay in third, polesitter and defending race-winner Alexander Rossi in seventh and series sophomore Zach Veach in eighth.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda pair Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato, who locked out the front row at Barber Motorsports Park last week and qualified sixth and eighth for today’s race, finished warm-up in fourth and fifth. Sixth went to Scott Dixon, whose Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda will start on the front row this afternoon.

Three-time Long Beach winner Sebastien Bourdais was ninth in the Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan Honda, while Spencer Pigot was fastest Chevrolet driver in 10th.

Patricio O’Ward tagged a wall early in the session and had to pit for Carlin Racing to carry out repairs, but once his car was healthy, he went out and snuck ahead of all the Team Penske-Chevys, which will roll off from third, fourth and fifth this afternoon.

The green flag for the 45th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will wave at 1:42pm local (Pacific) time.

Warm-up times:

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	88	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	1'07.1053
2	98	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	1'07.3466	0.2413
3	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1'07.4017	0.2964
4	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'07.5769	0.4716
5	30	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'07.7021	0.5968
6	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'07.9018	0.7965
7	27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1'07.9051	0.7998
8	26	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	1'08.3183	1.2130
9	18	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	1'08.3749	1.2696
10	21	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'08.3886	1.2833
11	5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'08.3990	1.2937
12	31	Patricio O'Ward	Carlin	1'08.5285	1.4232
13	12	Will Power	Team Penske	1'08.5326	1.4273
14	19	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	1'08.5393	1.4340
15	22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	1'08.5887	1.4834
16	10	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'08.5927	1.4874
17	14	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'08.6564	1.5511
18	60	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	1'08.7401	1.6348
19	20	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'08.7455	1.6402
20	2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'08.9668	1.8615
21	4	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'08.9874	1.8821
22	59	Max Chilton	Carlin	1'09.0233	1.9180
23	7	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'09.2629	2.1576

Starting grid:

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1'06.4811
2	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.7479	0.2668
3	12	Will Power	Team Penske	1'06.8748	0.3937
4	2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'06.9096	0.4285
5	22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	1'07.1877	0.7066
6	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'07.3052	0.8241
7	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1'07.1520	0.6709
8	30	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'07.2626	0.7815
9	31	Patricio O'Ward	Carlin	1'07.2764	0.7953
10	88	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	1'07.7721	1.2910
11	98	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	1'08.3746	1.8935
12	10	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'08.4410	1.9599
13	19	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	1'08.1008	1.6197
14	18	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	1'07.3135	0.8324
15	5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'08.1811	1.7000
16	59	Max Chilton	Carlin	1'07.4577	0.9766
17	20	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'08.7711	2.2900
18	60	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	1'07.5287	1.0476
19	7	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'08.9516	2.4705
20	4	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'07.7317	1.2506
21	14	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	3'22.3800	2'15.8989
22	26	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	1'07.7822	1.3011
23	21	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'07.8763	1.3952