Road America IndyCar: Hunter-Reay tops opening practice

The first came after 20mins when the Michael Shank Racing with Arrow SPM-Honda ground to a halt at Turn 12 with an electrical problem, just before Zach Veach of Andrettti Autosport-Honda went top until his time was deleted.

After the issue was resolved and he served his five-minute penalty for causing the red, Harvey appeared to suffer a stuck throttle at the same spot, skated over the gravel trap and nosed into the tires.

The original red foreshortened the original 30-minute period when the drivers were allowed to use the Push to Pass boost which delivers 50-60hp as the turbos are upped from 1.5-bar to 1.65-bar in a maximum of 20sec bursts.

Thus Hunter-Reay’s top lap – a 1min43.7556sec, 139.273mph – remained secure, his closest challenger being Takuma Sato’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda, a mere 0.0688sec behind, ahead of Scott Dixon’s Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda.

Will Power was top Chevrolet runner, taking fourth overall, 0.2838sec ahead and 0.0312sec faster than Team Penske teammate Josef Newgarden.

Andretti’s Alexander Rossi, who has finished three of the last four races staring at a Penske rear wing, was just behind his nemeses in sixth, but ahead of the other Penske of Indy 500 winner Simon Pagenaud, while Spencer Pigot of Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevy was eighth.

James Hinchcliffe of Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda and Marco Andretti (Andretti) completed the top 10.

The surprise of the session was Tony Kanaan who was 12^th for AJ Foyt Racing, less than one second off the ultimate pace, and ahead of Patricio O’Ward in the lead Carlin Racing-Chevy. His teammate, Max Chilton, turned only four very slow laps.

Santino Ferrucci’s Dale Coyne Racing-Honda was rolled away early with an engine issue after just six laps.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	9	1'43.7556			139.273
2	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	8	1'43.8244	0.0688	0.0688	139.181
3	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	8	1'43.9842	0.2286	0.1598	138.967
4	Will Power	Team Penske	10	1'44.0394	0.2838	0.0552	138.894
5	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	11	1'44.0706	0.3150	0.0312	138.852
6	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	9	1'44.1839	0.4283	0.1133	138.701
7	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	7	1'44.3979	0.6423	0.2140	138.417
8	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	10	1'44.4024	0.6468	0.0045	138.411
9	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	9	1'44.4186	0.6630	0.0162	138.389
10	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	11	1'44.5863	0.8307	0.1677	138.167
11	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	9	1'44.6216	0.8660	0.0353	138.121
12	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	8	1'44.7400	0.9844	0.1184	137.964
13	Patricio O'Ward	Carlin	11	1'44.8431	1.0875	0.1031	137.829
14	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	9	1'44.9050	1.1494	0.0619	137.747
15	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	12	1'44.9529	1.1973	0.0479	137.685
16	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	12	1'44.9832	1.2276	0.0303	137.645
17	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	10	1'45.0458	1.2902	0.0626	137.563
18	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	9	1'45.3621	1.6065	0.3163	137.150
19	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	7	1'45.5956	1.8400	0.2335	136.847
20	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	15	1'45.6119	1.8563	0.0163	136.825
21	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	10	1'45.6192	1.8636	0.0073	136.816
22	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing with Arrow SPM	7	1'46.9085	3.1529	1.2893	135.166
23	Max Chilton	Carlin	4	2'03.0777	19.3221	16.1692	117.409
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