Herta was the first driver to drop into the 66s around the 1.968-mile course, with a 66.5710sec on his sixth lap that at the time left him half a second clear of the field. However with 35mins to go, a spin at Turn 6 saw last year’s Long Beach winner strike the wall with his rear wing.
While this was being fixed, Scott McLaughlin and Felix Rosenqvist threw in strong laps, the latter’s Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet only 0.0730sec slower than Herta. Teammate Pato O’Ward had a brief trip into the Turn 9 runoff that required a pushstart.
Scott Dixon, yesterday’s pacesetter Simon Pagenaud and Romain Grosjean also got within two-tenths of Herta. Dixon might have improved still further but had a miraculous escape from a half spin at Turn 4, that saw him clip the concrete with his right-front wing, requiring a return to the pits.
With 18mins to go, Herta then raised the bar and lowered his time and got down to 66.2138sec.
Closest opposition was St. Petersburg winner and championship…
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