In both practices before Saturday night’s Iowa Corn 300, it’d be Tony Kanaan topping the charts ahead of his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon.
Kanaan led the first session with a lap of 17.958 seconds behind the wheel of his No. 10 Fusion Chevrolet.
“I think we have a pretty good set-up,” Kanaan said. “The track suits my style. The short ovals are definitely one of my strengths. So far, we’re pretty happy with the race car so we’ll see what’s going to happen.”
Dixon was then second quickest on the charts, 0.0105 seconds off of his teammate. Dixon comes into this weekend with the best average finish of active drivers, boosting a 6.5 following his eight previous starts. He has yet to win a race at Iowa Speedway, but he has five top-fives and seven top-10s to his credit.
“I think straight-out speed we’re definitely OK,” Dixon commented. “The car seems decent in race trim. With the ambient conditions and track temps way up, grip is going to be definitely key to the race.”
If either driver was able to visit victory lane this weekend, it’d be huge for Chip Ganassi Racing as it’d mark their 100th IndyCar victory.
Defending race winner Ryan Hunter-Reay was third quickest as he looks to break through for Andretti Autosport’s first victory of 2015. They have won six of the eight races at Iowa Speedway, including the last five in a row. Ryan Hunter-Reay was the most recent, and is the only active driver to have won twice at Iowa Speedway. After failing to finish in the top-10 over the past four races, a good run for Hunter-Reay this weekend would be huge as he currently sits 14th in points.
“I know what I want from the car and I know what it feels like on old tires and I know what it feels like on new tires,” said Hunter-Reay, driving the No. 28 DHL Andretti Autoport Honda. “I know how it needs to feel in traffic, so I know the target. Working to get it that way with the set-up is the hard part.
“It’s one where you have to have the car right in that perfect window to get it all right all the way through the stints from the beginning of tires till the end.”
Charlie Kimball and Josef Newgarden would round out the top-five, followed by Juan Pablo Montoya, Sebastien Bourdais, Helio Castroneves, Ed Carpenter and Simon Pagenaud.
In the second practice, Kanaan would top the charts with a lap of 17.7544 seconds, 0.0043 seconds ahead of Dixon. Will Power was third quickest as he looks to gain points on Montoya this weekend. He was followed by fellow Team Penske teammates Pagenaud and Montoya. Montoya is hoping to extend his points lead this weekend as he enters the event, 54 points ahead of Dixon. Montoya enters with some momentum as he has posted back-to-back fourth place finishes in the last two races. He also feels that they can have a good run this weekend despite finishing 16th last year at Iowa Speedway due to how much they learned about the aero kit last weekend.
“We’ve got to keep doing what we’ve been doing,” he stated. “What we’ve been doing has been working. We’ve been competitive every week. That’s the main goal. You got to be good, run a smart race and see what happens.”
Kimball was sixth quickest, followed by Bourdais, Castroneves, Carpenter and Sage Karam.
