Long Beach IndyCar: Hunter-Reay leads first practice
Ryan Hunter-Reay sent Andretti Autosport-Honda to the top of the times in the opening practice session for this weekend’s 45th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images
The 2012 champion and 2010 Long Beach winner lapped the 1.968-mile course in 67.9335sec with his final lap to beat reigning champion and 2015 race winner Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda by 0.1704sec.
Rookie Colton Herta, who last month became the youngest ever winner of an Indy car race, was third fastest for Harding Steinbrenner Racing, a quarter second off the top spot.
Graham Rahal’s final lap in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda was enough to edge him ahead of defending race winner Alexander Rossi (Andretti), and 2017 winner James Hinchcliffe of Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.
Felix Rosenqvist, like all the rookies, took full advantage of his extra set of primary tires to clock 24 laps, and finished the session seventh in the second Ganassi machine.
The three Team Penske cars of Simon Pagenaud, Josef Newgarden and Will Power headed up the Chevrolet charge in positions 8 through 10, while AJ Foyt Racing – which won the race here with Takuma Sato six years ago – showed a decent turn of pace with 11th and 13th fastest times.
Practice times:
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
The long evolution of Dallara's Indy 500 winner
IMSA Laguna Seca: Ganassi Cadillac holds off Porsche for victory
O’Ward, Rossi impressed by McLaren’s “massive step forward”
Chip Ganassi Racing unveils Palou’s DHL livery for 2024 season
Dreyer & Reinbold “still looking” at full-time return to IndyCar
Motorsport.com's Top 10 IndyCar drivers of 2017
Marquez: Age a key factor in Quartararo's new Yamaha MotoGP deal
F1 publishes sustainability report amid 2030 net zero push
Alpine fast-tracks F1 floor upgrade to China amid recovery push
How Haas delivered its F1 "game changer"
The apprenticeship that will aid Ilott's IndyCar to WEC switch at Jota
The long evolution of Dallara's Indy 500 winner
Nigel Mansell’s greatest F1 and Indycar drives
Ranking the top 10 IndyCar drivers of 2021
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments