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St Petersburg IndyCar: Takuma Sato quickest in final practice

Takuma Sato topped the final IndyCar practice session before qualifying for this weekend's season-opener in St Petersburg

Sato, who is making his debut with AJ Foyt Racing this weekend, moved to the top with a lap of 1m01.5293s less than three minutes before the session ended.

Will Power had previously been the pacesetter, and while the Australian survived a couple of lairy moments in a last-gasp quest for more time, Sato's lap remained unbeaten. It is the first time that a Honda-powered driver has led a session this weekend.

Power was left in second for Penske, his best lap 0.2 seconds down on Sato's, with James Hinchcliffe third ahead of Tony Kanaan, Sebastian Saavedra, and Marco Andretti.

Series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay survived a trip down the Turn 4 escape road to post the seventh-fastest lap, leaving Dario Franchitti, Josef Newgarden and early session leader Simona de Silvestro to complete the top 10.

The session was interrupted twice by stoppages, the first coming early on when Newgarden and Ana Beatriz found themselves sharing a run-off area, although neither car appeared to have sustained damage.

It was a different story a few minutes later for EJ Viso. He suffered a suspected right-front suspension failure on the way into Turn 10 and crashed heavily.

The resultant damage leaves the Andretti Autosport team scrambling to get the Venezuelan's car repaired in time for qualifying later on Saturday afternoon.

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                   Time        Gap
 1.  Takuma Sato          Foyt Dallara-Honda         1m01.5293s
 2.  Will Power           Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m01.7386s  + 0.2093s
 3.  James Hinchcliffe    Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m01.8971s  + 0.3678s
 4.  Tony Kanaan          KV Dallara-Chevy           1m01.9087s  + 0.3794s
 5.  Sebastian Saavedra   Dragon Dallara-Chevy       1m01.9457s  + 0.4164s
 6.  Marco Andretti       Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m01.9880s  + 0.4587s
 7.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m02.0207s  + 0.4914s
 8.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m02.0490s  + 0.5197s
 9.  Josef Newgarden      Panther Dallara-Honda      1m02.0981s  + 0.5688s
10.  Simona de Silvestro  KV Dallara-Chevy           1m02.1157s  + 0.5864s
11.  Graham Rahal         Rahal Dallara-Honda        1m02.1223s  + 0.5930s
12.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dragon Dallara-Chevy       1m02.1459s  + 0.6166s
13.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m02.1850s  + 0.6557s
14.  James Jakes          Rahal Dallara-Honda        1m02.2040s  + 0.6747s
15.  Tristan Vautier      Schmidt Dallara-Honda      1m02.2576s  + 0.7283s
16.  Helio Castroneves    Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m02.2606s  + 0.7313s
17.  Oriol Servia         Panther/DRR Dallara-Chevy  1m02.3027s  + 0.7734s
18.  JR Hildebrand        Panther Dallara-Chevy      1m02.3174s  + 0.7881s
19.  Justin Wilson        Coyne Dallara-Honda        1m02.3795s  + 0.8502s
20.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt Dallara-Honda      1m02.3936s  + 0.8643s
21.  Alex Tagliani        Herta Dallara-Honda        1m02.4715s  + 0.9422s
22.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m02.5344s  + 1.0051s
23.  EJ Viso              Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m03.0992s  + 1.5699s
24.  Ed Carpenter         Carpenter Dallara-Chevy    1m03.1658s  + 1.6365s
25.  Ana Beatriz          Coyne Dallara-Honda        1m03.3169s  + 1.7876s

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