IndyCar – Justin Wilson at the top in free practice

The program for the penultimate round of theIndyCar Series was thrown into disarray after organizers had to resolve a problem with the track surface at the first turn of this Houston track. If this postponed qualifying for Race 1 until today, it did not prevent the protagonists from having fun subsequently during the two free practice sessions preceding this doubleheader (two races in the weekend). The first was dominated by Will Power, who completed a lap in 1'06"8320. The Australian from Team Penske then preceded the New Zealander Scott Dixon (Ganassi) on the timesheet by 0”2473 and the Brazilian by 0”2716 Helio Castroneves (Team Penske), respectively 2nd and 1st in the general classification. Their closest pursuer, the French simon pagenaud (Schmidt Hamilton), signed the tenth best time of this session, 1”299 behind the reference time.

As the grip improved with each passage, the times fell during the second free practice session. The best time of the latter, and therefore of the day, finally went to Justin Wilson in 1’04”4237. The Briton from Dale Coyne Racing precedes Will Power by 0”3790 and the Frenchman Tristan Vautier (Schmidt Peterson) by 0”5709. The top 5 is completed by the American Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti Autosport) and by the Manceau Sébastien Bourdais (Dragon Racing), which confirms its current good dispositions. As for the top three in the championship, Scott Dixon (+0”9494) is sixth, Helio Castroneves (+1”3275) is eleventh and Simon Pagenaud (+1”6370) is sixteenth.

Rankings which give us the following groups for qualifying for the 1st race:

Group 1: Ryan Hunter-Reay, Marco Andretti, Justin Wilson, Sebastien Bourdais, Josef Newgarden, Dario Franchitti, Luca Filippi, Simona de Silvestro, Oriol Servia, Helio Castroneves, Will Power and Tristan Vautier.

Group 2: Viso, James Hinchcliffe, Ed Carpenter, Mike conway, Sebastian Saavedra, Takuma Sato, Scott Dixon, Charlie Kimball, Tony Kanaan, Graham Rahal, James Jakes and Simon Pagenaud.

Qualifying for the first event, initially scheduled for yesterday, is scheduled for today at 11:45 a.m. local time (18:45 p.m. French time). Unlike usual (Q1, Q2, Firestone Fast Six), the session will see both groups being offered 12 minutes of track time to chase the time. The start of race 1 is scheduled for 15:30 p.m. local time (22:30 p.m. French time).

And the question of the day is obviously this: How many of the 10 candidates who can still mathematically win the crown will still be in the running this evening after Race 1 of this doubleheader?