Scott Dixon Paces Morning Warmup for INDYCAR GP

By Aaron Bearden, Contributing Writer

Scott Dixon led the way in the morning warmup ahead of the fifth-annual INDYCAR Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Dixon’s top lap of 1:10.8157 stood .0214 seconds ahead of polesitter Will Power to lead the way in the final on-track session for the Verizon IndyCar Series ahead of this afternoon’s race.

Ryan Hunter-Reay, Jordan King and Max Chilton rounded out the top five, with Tony Kanaan, Zachary Claman de Melo, Josef Newgarden, Sebastien Bourdais and Simon Pagenaud completing the top 10.

Two cars found issue during the brief session.

The brunt of the trouble in the 30-minute warmup went to Marco Andretti. The third-generation driver was soaring down the frontstretch when his No. 98 Honda went up in smoke form apparent engine woes. The Pennsylvanian quickly brought his car to a halt, forcing a red flag as safety workers retrieved the wounded machine.

Also suffering a problem was Graham Rahal. With the television broadcast following along through the visor cam, Rahal briefly spun his No. 15 Honda around. Rahal didn’t hit anything, and he was able to keep his machine fired and soldier on without issue.

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Five minutes were added to the warmup after Andretti’s incident, but a second red flag flew shortly after his car was removed from the racing surface.

It came not from a car, but an animal. A quartet of geese made their way past Indy’s famed Yellow Shirts and onto the track, forcing a brief stoppage of the session as they were shooed away from the track.

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No geese were harmed, and the session ran green from that moment until practice’s end.

Helio Castroneves was forced to sit for the final five minutes of the warmup as a penalty for taking an extra lap in a prior session.

Coverage for the INDYCAR Grand Prix will begin at 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC.