Long Beach IndyCar: Rossi edges Rahal, Dixon in third practice

Rossi’s Andretti Autosport-Honda lapped the 1.968-mile street course in 67.0588sec, an average speed of 105.651mph, to jump ahead of Rahal’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda and Scott Dixon’s Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda.

Fourth fastest, and within quarter of a second of the top spot was Friday morning pacesetter Ryan Hunter-Reay in the second-quickest Andretti Autosport car.

Simon Pagenaud, echoing his fine performance in practice and qualifying here at Long Beach last year, was fifth fastest and top Chevrolet runner, edging Penske teammate Josef Newgarden by 0.045sec.

Their teammate Will Power was 10th, as he plays catch up after yesterday’s issue, when his rear tires were mounted left on right and right on left.

In between Newgarden and Power lay three rookies – Colton Herta of Harding Steinbrenner Racing, Felix Rosenqvist in the second Ganassi entry and Carlin-Chevrolet’s new star, Patricio O’Ward.

Several drivers rubbed walls and ended up in runoff areas, including pacesetter Rossi, but there were no session stoppages, despite Matheus Leist needing a push-start from the AMR Safety Team.

Qualifying begins at 12.10pm local (Pacific) Time.

Practice times:

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1'07.0588
2	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'07.1866	0.1278
3	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'07.2257	0.1669
4	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1'07.2949	0.2361
5	22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	1'07.4032	0.3444
6	2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'07.4484	0.3896
7	88	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	1'07.4785	0.4197
8	10	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'07.4954	0.4366
9	31	Patricio O'Ward	Carlin	1'07.5045	0.4457
10	12	Will Power	Team Penske	1'07.5261	0.4673
11	18	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	1'07.5318	0.4730
12	5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'07.5363	0.4775
13	26	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	1'07.5684	0.5096
14	7	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'07.6431	0.5843
15	60	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	1'07.6433	0.5845
16	30	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'07.7473	0.6885
17	98	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	1'07.8318	0.7730
18	20	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'07.8936	0.8348
19	21	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'07.9158	0.8570
20	19	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	1'07.9663	0.9075
21	59	Max Chilton	Carlin	1'07.9799	0.9211
22	14	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'08.1576	1.0988
23	4	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'08.1692	1.1104