Scott Dixon set the fastest lap in the final practice before the qualifying at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. The session was extremely close with the top six finishing within one tenth of a second.
Driving the No. 9 Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing, Dixon set the fastest lap of the third practice at one minute, 7.1348 seconds. Dixon was followed by another Honda driver, Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay, in second place, only 0.0002 seconds behind.
The defending Long Beach winner and Verizon IndyCar Series champion Simon Pagenaud was the top Chevrolet driver, 0.0365 behind Dixon in third place. Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ James Hinchcliffe was fourth in the session, despite mechanical issues ending his running five minutes before the checkered flag.
Takuma Sato in fifth and Graham Rahal in sixth place also made it within just 0.1 seconds from Dixon. The best Chevy drivers behind the third-placed Pagenaud were his Team Penske teammates Will Power and and Josef Newgarden in seventh and eighth places.
The session was briefly red-flagged after seven minutes of running as Sébastien Bourdais had made contact with the tire barrier at Turn 3. Having only damaged his front wing, Bourdais could quickly rejoin the practice and finished the session in ninth place, 0.2080 seconds from the lead.
Follow the links for the practice 3 and combined practice results.
The qualifying for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach takes place on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 pm local time (Sunday, 12:30 am CET).