LONG BEACH, Calif. (April 17, 2015) – Will Power and Team Penske teammate Simon Pagenaud recorded lap times in the second Verizon IndyCar Series practice session for the 41st Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach that were quicker than the 2014 Verizon P1 Award-winning time of Ryan Hunter-Reay. Next up is Sebastien Bourdais’ nine-year-old track record.
Power, driving the No. 1 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, led the 23-driver field with a lap of 1 minute, 7.5485 seconds. Pagenaud was 0.0370 of a second back in the No. 22 Penske Truck Rental Chevrolet. Eighteen drivers were within a second of Power’s quick lap on the 11-turn street circuit.
Sebastien Bourdais set the track lap record at the 1.968-mile configuration at 1:06.882 in 2006. He went on to win — the middle victory of three in a row at Long Beach. Hunter-Reay earned the Verizon P1 Award last year with a lap of 1:07.8219 in the No. 28 DHL Honda for Andretti Autosport.
The two other Team Penske drivers, Helio Castroneves (1:07.9132) and Juan Pablo Montoya (1:08.0539), also were in the top five. Scott Dixon, who was quickest in the first session (1:08.6458) in the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, was fourth (1:07.9671) in the late-afternoon practice.
A 45-minute session at 1 p.m. (ET) April 18 precedes the three rounds of qualifications (live-streamed 5 p.m. ET on racecontrol.indycar.com and tape-delayed at 6:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN) for the 80-lap race April 19 (4 p.m. ET on NBCSN).
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