It was a relatively quiet practice session Saturday morning in New Hampshire as the IZOD Indycar series held the first of two practice sessions of the day.
Canadian rookie driver James Hinchcliffe planted his Sprott Newman-Haas Racing Dallara-Honda in first place.
“The track is very different from how it was on Thursday when we did the first tests,” Hinchcliffe told Auto123.com after exiting his car.
“There's been stock-cars action on this track all day long yesterday, so the track feels quite different because of the type of rubber that's been laid down.
“We needed to change our set-up a bit and now it handles quite good. We'll see how we run in the afternoon session, but I'm definitely quite happy with the result,” Hinchcliffe added with a big smile on his face.
American Graham Rahal (Service Rental Chip Ganassi) held the quickest time for most of the 90-minute session, but his time got beaten by “Hinch” in the final fifteen minutes.
Rahal finished the session in second place ahead of Tony Kanaan (GEICO KV Technology Lotus), Hinchcliffe's teammate Oriol Servia (Telemundo Newman-Haas Racing) and Kanaan's teammate, former Formula 1 driver Takuma Sato (KV Technology Lotus).
There were some disappointments such as Indy 500 polesitter Alex Tagliani (19th place), Marco Andretti (22nd), Ed Carpenter (24th) and Simona de Silvestro (26th).
But several drivers complained about mid-corner over steer, a problem that needs to be fixed before they returned on the one-mile oval this afternoon for another practice session and the qualifying session.
Canadian rookie driver James Hinchcliffe planted his Sprott Newman-Haas Racing Dallara-Honda in first place.
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| James Hinchcliffe (Photo: Rene Fagnan/Auto123.com) |
“The track is very different from how it was on Thursday when we did the first tests,” Hinchcliffe told Auto123.com after exiting his car.
“There's been stock-cars action on this track all day long yesterday, so the track feels quite different because of the type of rubber that's been laid down.
“We needed to change our set-up a bit and now it handles quite good. We'll see how we run in the afternoon session, but I'm definitely quite happy with the result,” Hinchcliffe added with a big smile on his face.
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| (Photo: Jacqueline Fillion-Robin/Auto123.com) |
American Graham Rahal (Service Rental Chip Ganassi) held the quickest time for most of the 90-minute session, but his time got beaten by “Hinch” in the final fifteen minutes.
Rahal finished the session in second place ahead of Tony Kanaan (GEICO KV Technology Lotus), Hinchcliffe's teammate Oriol Servia (Telemundo Newman-Haas Racing) and Kanaan's teammate, former Formula 1 driver Takuma Sato (KV Technology Lotus).
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| (Photo: Jacqueline Fillion-Robin/Auto123.com) |
There were some disappointments such as Indy 500 polesitter Alex Tagliani (19th place), Marco Andretti (22nd), Ed Carpenter (24th) and Simona de Silvestro (26th).
But several drivers complained about mid-corner over steer, a problem that needs to be fixed before they returned on the one-mile oval this afternoon for another practice session and the qualifying session.
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| Alex Tagliani (Photo: Rene Fagnan/Auto123.com) |
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| Dario Franchitti (Photo: Rene Fagnan/Auto123.com) |