Pagenaud, the 2016 Long Beach winner, clocked a 67.1991sec in the session, eclipsing two-time Long Beach winner Alexander Rossi of Andretti Autosport-Honda by 0.4021sec. Pagenaud’s best time was two seconds quicker than Colton Herta’s first practice time from last year’s Long Beach in September. Today’s temperatures hovered just under the 100degF mark.
Apart from the usual problems of drivers outbraking themselves and having harmless trips to runoff zones – Ganassi’s Scott Dixon and the Andretti cars of Romain Grosjean and Colton Herta were three high-profile candidates – the main incidents were caused by Jimmie Johnson who nosed into a tire wall after grabbing too much curb on corner entry, and Dalton Kellett who spun and stalled. Both incidents required a red flag.
Pato O’Ward smacked his left-rear against the wall and gave himself a puncture and a broken toe-link but the Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet driver re-emerged and he swiftly got on his teammate Felix…
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