Will Power leads practice for Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
When it came to the road courses last year, it was a continuing battle between Will Power and Ryan Hunter-Reay. That battle will look to continue in 2013 as Power lead practice with Hunter-Reay second.
Power would top the charts with a speed of 105.457 mph in his No. 12 Verizon Wireless Team Penske Chevrolet.
“”This is normal,” Power said. “We expect to be at the front and we are always disappointed if we are back because we have the team to do it. We’re not doing our job if we’re not.”
In speaking of the competition, Power expects both Andretti Autosport and Ganassi Racing to have cars up front.
“Andretti is right on the pace,” he said. “Their two drivers: (James) Hinchcliffe and (Ryan) Hunter-Reay are no question going to be right there all year. Ganassi, I think, it’s an engine thing, but I guess we will see when qualifying comes, I think that’s when everyone knows where everyone stands and hopefully they’re not good.”
Hunter-Reay was second on the charts, two tenths of a second behind Power at the end of the session.
“It feels great to be in the first official (IZOD) IndyCar (Series) session of the year,” the defending series champion said. “It’s still early days. We’ve only done a total of five runs so far between the two sessions. The guys have done a great job in the offseason, the car has a lot of grip in it, but we just need to refine it a bit. We need to make it work for the drivers where they need it. We’re struggling a little bit coming off the corners, so we know there’s lap time there. We know where it is. We just need to go get it.”
Surprising some people, Simona de Silvestro was third on the charts, 0.24 seconds off of Power.
“It’s a big difference,” she said. “Last year we came in here and we knew it was going to be a struggle, and this year we come after a really good Barber test and it showed right away. Even this morning I thought we were pretty quick even if we still have a little bit of work to do on the car. It’s definitely a relief to know we can be fast and we can be right up there with the other guys.”
Oriol Servia was fourth with Takuma Sato in fifth.
Power’s teammate Helio Castroneves was sixth, followed by Tony Kanaan, James Hinchcliffe, rookie Tristan Vautier and Marco Andretti.
There was no incidents during the session, however it was a surprise to see Ganassi Racing driver Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon 17th and 19th on the chart.
“The Target car felt reasonable,” Franchitti said afterwards. “It was actually better than it was in this morning’s session. It just didn’t have the speed in it we’re looking for. It looks like we’re going to have a busy night.”
“Practice wasn’t so great,” Dixon said. “We had a couple of issues with the car not starting and some other mechanical things that just kind of happened. Not the start we wanted to have for the Target team this weekend but we’ll work on getting it right for qualifying tomorrow.”
Qualifying takes place on Saturday at 3:15pm EST with the race schedule for noon EST on Sunday.
Clint Bowyer leads opening practice for Auto Club 500 at Auto Club Speedway
At the end of the first practice, it’d be Clint Bowyer topping the charts with a lap of 38.832 seconds (185.414 mph) in his No. 15 5-Hour Energy Toyota.
“This is a fun race track,” he said. “For as big as it is, it’s always a lot of fun when it widens out on the race — running high, running low and duking and driving. It always seems to race pretty well. For the size of this race track, we all enjoy ourselves pretty well out there. Looking forward to it.”
In four races so far this year, Bowyer has two top 10 finishes, with his worst finish being 27th at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Currently sitting fourth in points, Bowyer is trying to keep the momentum going after finishing second in points last year to Brad Keselowski.
“Had a strong run last week (at Bristol) and hopefully we can continue this momentum and keep building,” Bowyer continued. “This is a good time of the year to get your mojo rolling and get a good points base established so you can roll into the summer months being able to race as hard as you want and take as many chances as you want.”
Denny Hamlin would time in second, 0.0124 seconds off of Bowyer. Hamlin has been in the news lately as a result of a comment that NASCAR didn’t agree with at Phoenix International Raceway. Hamlin was penalized and said he wouldn’t pay the fine, but chose not to appeal. Hamlin is also looking for a good run this weekend after a poor finish last weekend due to a flat tire late in the race. Last weekend may be a weekend that the driver of the No. 11 FedEx Toyota would like to forget after a run-in with Joey Logano.
A.J. Allmendinger was third, 0.169 seconds off of Bowyer in his No. 51 Phoenix Construction Chevrolet. Allmendinger will be running some races for Phoenix Racing while running some Indy Car races for Penske Racing, including the Indianapolis 500.
Last week’s pole sitter and fourth place finisher Kyle Busch was fourth, followed by Logano.
Greg Biffle was sixth, followed by Mark Martin, Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart.
Points leader Brad Keselowski was 20th, 0.570 seconds off of Bowyer.
“We have done everything but win a race,” Keselowski said of his season so far. “That is where our focus is at this weekend for sure. We’ve certainly got a strong, consistent start but we have been in position on the final restart of each race to win and have come up just a little bit short. Hopefully we can close that out this weekend. I think we have got the car to do it and the team to do it. We are ready to get on track and get going. We have practice and qualifying here today and I am curious how this race is going to play out. I honestly think this is going to be an exceptional race.”
Qualifying takes place later today at 7pm EST.
