Power fastest in second Long Beach practice

Friday, 07 April 2017


By Mark Glendenning / Image by IMS Photo

Will Power set the pace in Friday's second Verizon IndyCar Series practice session at Long Beach.
The Team Penske driver laid down his 1m17.0800s lap shortly after swapping his black Firestones for a set of the softer reds with about 15 minutes left on the clock, and his time held for the remainder of the afternoon.
"Car feels comfortable," said Power, who has two wins here. "So, yeah, work on it. It kind of sucks if you're quickest because (indiscernible) details, you know. Wish I was fifth or something, it would have been a much better. You don't want to show people what you got too soon.
"For me, if you count the last two races of last year and St. Pete, it's basically been three DNFs on tracks that I'm really good at. It's about time I had a good run here. Really need to have a good run. It would be great."
Andretti Autosport's Marco Andretti was second fastest, 0.2276s down on Power.

"Basically, we're confirming what we've seen all through testing," Andretti said. "We have the pace, we need to make sure we convert it into results, and I want to make sure we can do that.

Penske and Andretti dominated the top of the order, with Simon Pagenaud ending the session third fastest ahead of Takuma Sato, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Helio Castroneves.
Dixon, who had been quickest in the morning, had to settle for eighth fastest in the afternoon behind Sebastien Bourdais, while his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Tony Kanaan was left 13th fastest after causing the day's only stoppage.
The Brazilian outbraked himself and stalled in a run-off with just under 10 minutes remaining, but was able to resume running after being restarted.