Portland IndyCar: Herta beats title contenders in FP1

The teenager who won at Circuit of The Americas and took pole at Road America set a 57.429sec around Portland’s 1.964-mile track, setting an average speed of 123.115mph to eclipse Andretti Autosport-Honda’s Rossi by 0.1245sec.

Dixon was a further 0.24sec adrift in the Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda, just five hundredths ahead of Newgarden of Team Penske-Chevrolet, who was the sole Bowtie representative in the Top 10.

Marco Andretti, Zach Veach and Ryan Hunter-Reay ensured all Andretti cars were in the top 10 after a strong test here two weeks ago.

James Hinchcliffe was sixth fastest for Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda while temporary teammate Conor Daly – subbing for Alfa Romeo F1 third driver Marcus Ericsson, who is in Spa on standby – was 23^rdin his first run for the Arrow SPM team this year. Daly, who is competing for his third team this year, was only 1.2sec off Hinch.

Felix Rosenqvist was top rookie in eighth, less than 0.3sec from Ganassi teammate Dixon, and ahead of last year’s winner Takuma Sato and last year’ polesitter Will Power.

Matheus Leist did a commendable job to clock P13 for AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet, while series returnee Max Chilton was similarly impressive with 14^thfor Carlin Racing-Chevrolet.

FP2 begins at 2.40pm local (Pacific) time.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	18	57.4293			123.115
2	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	15	57.5538	0.1245	0.1245	122.849
3	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	19	57.7922	0.3629	0.2384	122.342
4	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	17	57.8504	0.4211	0.0582	122.219
5	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	16	57.9006	0.4713	0.0502	122.113
6	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	18	57.9479	0.5186	0.0473	122.013
7	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	19	57.9619	0.5326	0.0140	121.984
8	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	27	58.0262	0.5969	0.0643	121.848
9	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	18	58.1618	0.7325	0.1356	121.564
10	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	19	58.1906	0.7613	0.0288	121.504
11	Will Power	Team Penske	21	58.2343	0.8050	0.0437	121.413
12	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	19	58.3294	0.9001	0.0951	121.215
13	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	23	58.3381	0.9088	0.0087	121.197
14	Max Chilton	Carlin	18	58.3436	0.9143	0.0055	121.186
15	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	17	58.4256	0.9963	0.0820	121.015
16	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	19	58.4616	1.0323	0.0360	120.941
17	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing with Arrow SPM	20	58.4922	1.0629	0.0306	120.878
18	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	9	58.5005	1.0712	0.0083	120.861
19	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	18	58.6232	1.1939	0.1227	120.608
20	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	14	58.6592	1.2299	0.0360	120.534
21	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	15	58.8380	1.4087	0.1788	120.167
22	Charlie Kimball	Carlin	21	58.9895	1.5602	0.1515	119.859
23	Conor Daly	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	22	59.1828	1.7535	0.1933	119.467
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