By Josh Farmer, IndyCar Reporter
Three-time Watkins Glen winner Scott Dixon led a blistering fast field in both practice sessions for Sunday’s IndyCar Grand Prix at The Glen presented by Hitachi.
Dixon unseated Will Power inside the final 10 minutes of the late afternoon session and broke he 83-second barrier with the fastest lap of the day of 1:22.8740s. The lap was a surreal distant 5.5s under Ryan Briscoe’s record lap of 1.28.1322s.
With the track continuing to rubber in and teams using the softer Firestone Reds during qualifications tomorrow, speeds are expected to fall even more.
Dixon led a Chevrolet and Penske/Ganassi sweep of the top five followed by Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves and Will Power as Kanaan and Juan Pablo Montoya.
Jack Hawksworth carried the banner for Honda and AJ Foyt Racing with the sixth quickest time while Texas winner Graham Rahal of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing logged the seventh quickest time.
The final session was cut short by a few minutes as series points leader Simon Pagenaud and Kanaan both had separate incidents on the 3.37 mile road course. Pagenaud over-corrected his No. 22 Hewlett Packard Chevrolet in Turn 7 and smacked the barriers. The car suffered a moderate amount of damage.
Kanaan spun in Turn 6 but did not make any contact.
Conor Daly suffered the only other major incident of the day when he hit a wet spot on the rumble strips in Turn 5, which sent his No. 18 Jonathan Byrd’s Hospitality Honda into the wall. The Dale Coyne Racing crew managed to repair his car and Daly returned to the track in the afternoon session.
Practice three for Sunday’s IndyCar Grand Prix of Watkins Glen presented by Hitachi will go green at 10:00 a.m. EST tomorrow morning and can be watched at racecontrol.indycar.com. Qualifying will begin at 3:00 p.m. EST.
