As throughout practice and qualifying, several cars could be seen squirming under braking as they hit the painted runway stripes in the first corner, but it was 2016 Indy 500 winner Rossi who slotted into the top spot, 0.0468sec quicker than a late flyer from AJ Foyt Racing’s Tony Kanaan and 0.115 ahead of Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Gabby Chaves, who will start eighth for Harding Racing’s fourth IndyCar race, was fourth quickest ahead of Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden who avoided a desperately late-braking Scott Dixon at Turn 1 on his penultimate lap… and then ran wide himself at the same point on the following lap. Dixon was in sixth.

2017 St. Pete winner Bourdais took seventh ahead of James Hinchcliffe’s Schmidt Peterson car, with Will Power and Spencer Pigot completing the Top 10.

The race is due to start at 12.40pm ET.

Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, raceday warm-up

Cla	#	Driver	Time	Gap
1	27	Alexander Rossi	1'01.6182
2	14	Tony Kanaan	1'01.6650	0.0468
3	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	1'01.7338	0.1156
4	88	Gabby Chaves	1'02.0030	0.3848
5	1	Josef Newgarden	1'02.0438	0.4256
6	9	Scott Dixon	1'02.0806	0.4624
7	18	Sébastien Bourdais	1'02.1511	0.5329
8	5	James Hinchcliffe	1'02.3681	0.7499
9	12	Will Power	1'02.3917	0.7735
10	21	Spencer Pigot	1'02.5262	0.9080
11	22	Simon Pagenaud	1'02.5534	0.9352
12	26	Zach Veach	1'02.6113	0.9931
13	20	Jordan King	1'02.6279	1.0097
14	4	Matheus Leist	1'02.6286	1.0104
15	98	Marco Andretti	1'02.6366	1.0184
16	10	Ed Jones	1'02.6633	1.0451
17	59	Max Chilton	1'02.6730	1.0548
18	30	Takuma Sato	1'02.7527	1.1345
19	15	Graham Rahal	1'02.9290	1.3108
20	6	Robert Wickens	1'02.9568	1.3386
21	60	Jack Harvey	1'03.2674	1.6492
22	23	Charlie Kimball	1'03.5847	1.9665
23	19	Zachary Claman DeMelo	1'03.9533	2.3351
24	32	Rene Binder	1'04.4071	2.7889