Chip Ganassi Racing and Honda flexed their muscles Tuesday at Sebring, Florida in the final open test before IndyCar’s season opener on March 12 at St. Pete.
Scott Dixon turned a lap of 51.13s, which was just a couple tenths better than teammate Charlie Kimball’s 51.42, who was a tenth better than Max Chilton and Tony Kanaan, who was fourth fastest of the 16 cars with a 51.75-second lap.
“Scott ran a low 51 in the afternoon and we think it was about four-tenths quicker than Will [Power] and we really don’t know why,” said Mike Hull, the managing director of Chip Ganassi Racing, whose team switched to Hondas this season. “Chevrolet may have been playing games, who knows, but they’re always a little conservative in this environment so I wouldn’t read a lot into it. And it was [Simon] Pagenaud, Dixie and Power this morning and they were all within a tenth of each other.
“But we had a good day. Max [Chilton] and Charlie [Kimball] ran well and T.K. [Tony Kanaan] held his own.”
Power turned a 51.75 in his Verizon Chevy and defending IndyCar champ Simon Pagenaud (quickest in the morning session) was close behind at 51.77 along with teammates Helio Castroneves (51.79) and Josef Newgarden (51.93). Newgarden had the flu and ran less than 20 laps.
Hull was quick to point out that being fast at Sebring doesn’t always transfer to being quick at St. Pete.
“We worked hard on our street course and road course setups this winter because we know we have to do a much better job than we did last year,” continued Hull, whose perennial powerhouse only scored two wins in 2016 (both by Dixon) at Phoenix and Watkins Glen. “Of course Sebring is a funny place because it grips up so much and St. Pete has no rubber and takes an hour and half to get any grip at all.
“So you can have a great car at Sebring and a terrible car at St. Pete.”
Despite breaking a couple ribs last Sunday when he fell at his farm, A.J. Foyt showed up to watch Conor Daly and Carlos Munoz.
“It hurts to cough, sneeze or laugh but I can be just as miserable here as I am at home,” said the 82-year-old IndyCar legend whose ABC Supply team switched to Chevrolet this year. “I wanted to see my boys run and we spent all day trying different things for road courses and I think we made some progress, I think Conor was ninth or 10th but we weren’t trying to break any track records and they kept their nose clean and learned some things.”
Source: http://www.racer.com/
