IndyCar – Power ahead, the French well placed in Sonoma testing

On the road route of Sonoma in California, the drivers of theIndyCar had arranged to meet for the first test session for the 2014 vintage. If Will Power and his Penske-Chevrolet n°12 proved to be the fastest, Sébastien Bourdais et simon pagenaud showed themselves to their advantage.

Will Power, who won the Sonoma race in 2013 (benefiting from Scot Dixon's penalty), once again distinguished himself on the Californian track. With a time of 1'17″8, he was a breath ahead of 2013 champion Scott Dixon (1'17″9) who was riding Chip Ganassi's Chevy. Dixon discovered the Chevrolet engine after driving the last two seasons with the Honda unit.

Behind the Australian and the New Zealander, we find the two Frenchmen, Sébastien Bourdais and Simon Pagenaud. Bourdais, just victorious in the 24 hours of Daytona in the United SportsCar Championship, has returned to the IndyCar game perfectly with his new team KVSH Racing. He achieved a best time of 1'18″1. Behind, Simon Pagenaud (Schmidt Peterson Motorsport) places first car powered by a new generation Honda V6 twin-turbo engine in fourth position. (Only three cars equipped with the Japanese engine were on the track compared to ten Chevrolets).

We then find Helio Castroneves (Penske), Tony Kanaan and Charlie Kimball (Ganassi). Mikhail Aleshin, Pagenaud's teammate at SPM, took 8th place, with a single-seater equipped with a 2013 version single-turbo engine ahead of the test driver of Toyota en WEC Mike conway (Ed Carpenter Racing) and Ryan Briscoe (Ganassi) who complete the top 10. Takuma Sato (AJ Foyt), Juan-Pablo Montoya (Penske) and new KVSH recruit Sebastian Saavedra are the last drivers to set a time.

The first round of IndyCar 2014 will take place in St Petersburg (Florida) on March 30.