Toronto IndyCar: Pagenaud leads third practice as rookies shine

The 2016 NTT IndyCar Series champion and reigning Indy 500 winner lapped the 1.786-mile course in 59.365sec to beat his struggling teammates Josef Newgarden and Will Power by almost three-quarters of a second, while Felix Rosenqvist of Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda was second, a similar margin ahead of his teammate Scott Dixon, down in 15^th.

Andretti Autosport-Honda’s Ryan Hunter-Reay had drawn to within 0.16sec of Simon Pagenaud’s top time when he thumped the tires and stalled at Turn 8, although he would remain third fastest.

With four minutes to go Graham Rahal stuffed his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda into the Turn 1 tire wall, allowing drivers just one more timed lap before the checkered flag, but no one improved.

Thus Santino Ferrucci clocked P4 in the Dale Coyne Racing-Honda ahead of fellow rookie Colton Herta of Harding Steinbrenner Racing.

Marco Andretti continued his reasonably impressive weekend in sixth ahead of championship-contending teammate Alexander Rossi, while Sebastien Bourdais made it two Coyne cars in the top eight.

James Hinchcliffe was just two places ahead of his Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda teammate Marcus Ericsson who was in much better form today than yesterday, the pair of them split by Spencer Pigot’s Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevy.

Sage Karam, making his return to a non-oval IndyCar race for the first time since 2015, was 2sec off the pace, 1.1sec behind Carlin-Chevy teammate Max Chilton.

Qualifying begins at 2.00pm local (Eastern) time.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	19	59.3651			108.306
2	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	27	59.4353	0.0702	0.0702	108.178
3	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	13	59.5277	0.1626	0.0924	108.010
4	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	22	59.6636	0.2985	0.1359	107.764
5	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	21	59.6722	0.3071	0.0086	107.749
6	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	22	59.8162	0.4511	0.1440	107.489
7	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	20	59.8232	0.4581	0.0070	107.477
8	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	23	59.8847	0.5196	0.0615	107.366
9	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	18	59.8869	0.5218	0.0022	107.362
10	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	22	59.9400	0.5749	0.0531	107.267
11	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	19	59.9802	0.6151	0.0402	107.195
12	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	20	59.9843	0.6192	0.0041	107.188
13	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	18	1'00.0944	0.7293	0.1101	106.992
14	Will Power	Team Penske	21	1'00.0970	0.7319	0.0026	106.987
15	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	19	1'00.1200	0.7549	0.0230	106.946
16	Max Chilton	Carlin	18	1'00.2706	0.9055	0.1506	106.679
17	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	16	1'00.3074	0.9423	0.0368	106.614
18	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	19	1'00.4657	1.1006	0.1583	106.335
19	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	22	1'00.5096	1.1445	0.0439	106.258
20	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	18	1'00.9063	1.5412	0.3967	105.565
21	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	19	1'01.0067	1.6416	0.1004	105.392
22	Sage Karam	Carlin	23	1'01.3920	2.0269	0.3853	104.730
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