Sonoma IndyCar: Will Power fastest for Penske in Friday practice
Will Power was fastest for Penske in the marathon three-and-a-half hour opening IndyCar session at Sonoma on Friday
![](https://cdn-6.motorsport.com/static/img/amp/0/0/0/0//s6_.jpg)
The reigning champion was on top for most of the afternoon, finally settling on a 1m17.4858s effort that was less than 0.1 seconds off his pole time from last year.
"That was an interesting session," Power said.
"It's the first time we got to try that new [compound] tyre on a long run and it definitely degrades a lot, so I think that's going to create really good racing.
"Obviously [qualifying] tomorrow is what really counts, but I think we're in a good window.
"We'll just go home, study, and see if we can make some good changes to go a little bit faster."
Graham Rahal's hopes of toppling Juan Pablo Montoya's championship bid got off to an encouraging start: the Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver was unhappy with his car early in the session, but climbed up to second once the team had made some changes.
"I think it was a good start for us," he said.
"The beginning wasn't very good; we made some changes from the [recent] test and were struggling pretty bad there.
"But we got the car turned around; made some major changes and the car was a lot better."
Ryan Hunter-Reay rounded out the top three, while Montoya finished up in ninth.
Oriol Servia, who was called up to drive Justin Wilson's #25 Andretti Autosport entry, had an inauspicious start to the day when his car stopped at Turn 2 on his out-lap, prompting the only stoppage of the session, but he later returned to complete a total of 33 laps.
Fellow series returnee Mikhail Aleshin finished the afternoon 17th-fastest in the second Schmidt entry.
FRIDAY PRACTICE TIMES:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Will Power | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m17.4858s | - | 47 |
2 | Graham Rahal | Rahal Letterman Lanigan | Dallara/Honda | 1m17.6184s | 0.1326s | 33 |
3 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | Andretti Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 1m17.6423s | 0.1565s | 33 |
4 | Scott Dixon | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m17.7937s | 0.3079s | 40 |
5 | Marco Andretti | Andretti Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 1m17.8827s | 0.3969s | 33 |
6 | Simon Pagenaud | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m17.9908s | 0.5050s | 45 |
7 | Helio Castroneves | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m18.0033s | 0.5175s | 59 |
8 | Charlie Kimball | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m18.0635s | 0.5777s | 42 |
9 | Juan Pablo Montoya | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m18.0901s | 0.6043s | 41 |
10 | Sebastien Bourdais | KVSH Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m18.1390s | 0.6532s | 50 |
11 | Carlos Munoz | Andretti Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 1m18.1529s | 0.6671s | 34 |
12 | Tony Kanaan | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m18.1558s | 0.6700s | 30 |
13 | Josef Newgarden | CFH Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m18.1594s | 0.6736s | 36 |
14 | Ryan Briscoe | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | Dallara/Honda | 1m18.1649s | 0.6791s | 42 |
15 | Gabby Chaves | Bryan Herta Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 1m18.2388s | 0.7530s | 45 |
16 | Sebastian Saavedra | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m18.3924s | 0.9066s | 40 |
17 | Mikhail Aleshin | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | Dallara/Honda | 1m18.4491s | 0.9633s | 32 |
18 | Jack Hawksworth | AJ Foyt Enterprises | Dallara/Honda | 1m18.4625s | 0.9767s | 45 |
19 | Takuma Sato | AJ Foyt Enterprises | Dallara/Honda | 1m18.6520s | 1.1662s | 42 |
20 | Tristan Vautier | Dale Coyne Racing | Dallara/Honda | 1m18.9471s | 1.4613s | 20 |
21 | James Jakes | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | Dallara/Honda | 1m19.0050s | 1.5192s | 37 |
22 | Rodolfo Gonzalez | Dale Coyne Racing | Dallara/Honda | 1m19.1607s | 1.6749s | 55 |
23 | Luca Filippi | CFH Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m19.2210s | 1.7352s | 47 |
24 | Stefano Coletti | KV Racing Technology | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m19.2787s | 1.7929s | 23 |
25 | Oriol Servia | Andretti Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 1m19.6981s | 2.2123s | 33 |
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