IndyCar: Hinchcliffe tops red-flag ruined practice 3

James Hinchcliffe the man to beat for pole this afternoon

We have seen so many red flags in IndyCar practice at Barber Motorsports Park this weekend you would think the drivers are a bunch of rank amateurs. Final practice was no different and totally disjointed as a result.

James Hinchcliffe [Honda] was again the only driver to get down into the 1m08s bracket and his lap of 1m08.735s was a whopping 0.300s faster than 2nd quick Sebastien Bourdais [Honda] – a big gap given how tight the field is.

Scott Dixon was third quick in his Ganassi Honda ahead of Colton Herta and Takuma Sato who rounded out the top-5 as Honda powered cars again ran 1-2-3-4-5.

However, everyone feels Team Penske is sandbagging and focusing on race setups until qualifying begins.

Marcus Ericsson, Zach Veach and Graham Rahal were among those going off and causing red flags this session.

How much is Will Power and the Penske team sandbagging?

Given the lack of green-flag running in practice, and the fact the red tires have thrown teams for a loop will make qualifying a total crap shoot.

The talk remains about the lack of balance and stability when the cars were shod with the red-sidewall tire.

As unstable as the alternate reds felt for some drivers, the primary black tire felt the opposite for most. Usually, the softer alternate compound is stickier and faster but wears more quickly. On Friday, though, it was oddly out of sorts. Changing track conditions at NTT IndyCar Series road- and street-courses have made the primary the tire of choice on occasion over the years, so while Friday’s experience was rare, it wasn’t a total anomaly.

The temps are up at Barber and it is getting very humid, which will make the track rather slippery for qualifying where we expect several of the drivers to again run out of talent and crash – causing several red flags and ruining it for everyone. There is even a chance for thunderstorms during qualifying.

Like we said – a total crap shoot.

Practice 3 Results

Pos	No	Name	FTime	Diff	Gap	Laps	Engine	Team
1	5	James Hinchcliffe	1:08.735	–.—-	–.—-	12	Honda	Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
2	18	Sebastien Bourdais	1:09.035	0.3000	0.3000	12	Honda	Dale Coyne w/Vasser-Sullivan
3	9	Scott Dixon	1:09.233	0.4983	0.1983	10	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
4	88	Colton Herta	1:09.244	0.5093	0.0110	14	Honda	Harding Steinbrenner Racing
5	30	Takuma Sato	1:09.269	0.5341	0.0248	16	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
6	21	Spencer Pigot	1:09.278	0.5433	0.0092	12	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
7	22	Simon Pagenaud	1:09.284	0.5486	0.0053	16	Chevy	Team Penske
8	10	Felix Rosenqvist	1:09.288	0.5533	0.0047	14	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing Teams
9	59	Max Chilton	1:09.311	0.5762	0.0229	15	Chevy	Carlin
10	27	Alexander Rossi	1:09.348	0.6130	0.0368	12	Honda	Andretti Autosport
11	31	Patricio O'Ward	1:09.427	0.6921	0.0791	13	Chevy	Carlin
12	20	Ed Jones	1:09.454	0.7189	0.0268	12	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
13	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	1:09.479	0.7443	0.0254	9	Honda	Andretti Autosport
14	60	Jack Harvey	1:09.528	0.7931	0.0488	14	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing w/Arrow SPM
15	12	Will Power	1:09.596	0.8608	0.0677	14	Chevy	Team Penske
16	4	Matheus Leist	1:09.629	0.8936	0.0328	13	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
17	2	Josef Newgarden	1:09.741	1.0058	0.1122	13	Chevy	Team Penske
18	14	Tony Kanaan	1:09.863	1.1279	0.1221	12	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
19	15	Graham Rahal	1:09.972	1.2372	0.1093	13	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
20	98	Marco Andretti	1:10.038	1.3033	0.0661	10	Honda	Andretti Herta w/Curb-Agajanian
21	7	Marcus Ericsson	1:10.155	1.4201	0.1168	7	Honda	Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsport
22	19	Santino Ferrucci	1:10.559	1.8236	0.4035	11	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing
23	81	Ben Hanley	1:10.912	2.1772	0.3536	15	Chevy	DragonSpeed
24	26	Zach Veach	1:11.086	2.3513	0.1741	2	Honda	Andretti Autosport