Pagenaud ducked under the lap record with a 1min16.0329 lap to set an average of 112.925mph around this 2.385-mile road course in northern California.

Dixon’s Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda was only 0.1125sec behind, however, and more than double that gap ahead of championship leader Josef Newgarden in the #2 Penske. The pair were separated by Will Power’s Penske, while the fourth Penske, that of Helio Castroneves, was fifth albeit 0.44sec from top spot.

Takuma Sato took his turn to be fastest of the Andretti Autosport-Honda drivers in sixth ahead of Graham Rahal’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda, and two more Andretti cars Ryan Hunter-Reay and Marco Andretti.

Ganassi’s Tony Kanaan completed the top 10.

Jack Harvey was a mere half a tenth behind Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda teammate James Hinchcliffe, although the Canadian may have thrown away his best lap with a harmless spin three minutes from the end.

Series debutant Zachary Claman De Melo was 22^nd, just 1.8sec off Pagenaud’s pace, and 1.2sec off RLLR teammate Graham Rahal.

Sonoma, IndyCar FP3

Cla	#	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	1	Simon Pagenaud	8	1'16.0329			112.925
2	9	Scott Dixon	9	1'16.1454	0.1125	0.1125	112.758
3	12	Will Power	9	1'16.1609	0.1280	0.0155	112.735
4	2	Josef Newgarden	10	1'16.2973	0.2644	0.1364	112.533
5	3	Helio Castroneves	9	1'16.4782	0.4453	0.1809	112.267
6	26	Takuma Sato	7	1'16.5597	0.5268	0.0815	112.148
7	15	Graham Rahal	14	1'16.6372	0.6043	0.0775	112.034
8	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	7	1'16.6474	0.6145	0.0102	112.019
9	27	Marco Andretti	8	1'16.6991	0.6662	0.0517	111.944
10	10	Tony Kanaan	8	1'16.7095	0.6766	0.0104	111.929
11	18	Sébastien Bourdais	7	1'16.7675	0.7346	0.0580	111.844
12	98	Alexander Rossi	10	1'16.7678	0.7349	0.0003	111.844
13	8	Max Chilton	13	1'17.0175	0.9846	0.2497	111.481
14	83	Charlie Kimball	15	1'17.1271	1.0942	0.1096	111.323
15	19	Ed Jones	12	1'17.1479	1.1150	0.0208	111.293
16	20	Spencer Pigot	13	1'17.2089	1.1760	0.0610	111.205
17	5	James Hinchcliffe	11	1'17.2175	1.1846	0.0086	111.192
18	7	Jack Harvey	12	1'17.2646	1.2317	0.0471	111.125
19	14	Carlos Munoz	16	1'17.2836	1.2507	0.0190	111.097
20	4	Conor Daly	13	1'17.3633	1.3304	0.0797	110.983
21	21	J.R. Hildebrand	20	1'17.3684	1.3355	0.0051	110.976
22	13	Zachary Claman DeMelo	16	1'17.8448	1.8119	0.4764	110.296