Hinchcliffe Heads Honda Qualifiers at Long Beach
• Sato, Munoz also post top-10 times
• Daly again leads rookie field

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports driver James Hinchcliffe again led the Honda field in Verizon IndyCar Series action on Saturday on the streets of Long Beach, California, qualifying seventh for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Long Beach. The Canadian Indy car veteran, now fully recovered from serious injuries sustained last May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, is seeking his fifth career victory, and first at Long Beach.

Qualifying less than a tenth of a second slower, 2013 Long Beach winner Takuma Sato will start eighth, with 2015 Detroit victor Carlos Munoz leading the Andretti Autosport effort to round out the top-10 qualifiers. Munoz’s teammate, Ryan Hunter-Reay, will start 11th.

Luca Filippi capped a strong effort from Dale Coyne Racing to qualify 12th, while teammate Conor Daly again led the rookie field at Long Beach, and will start 13th. Sunday’s 80-lap race starts at 4 p.m. EDT, with live network television coverage on the NBC Sports Network.

James Hinchcliffe (#5 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda): “Today was a really good day. We rolled off the truck with a good car on Friday and I’m really proud of the Arrow Electronics guys for the prep that they did, because the car was a rocket right from the get-go. We’ve just been making little tweaks to it, trying to get into a position to be fighting for the Firestone Fast Six, and we did. We finished seventh. We kind of [lost out] a little bit with the way that the Timing and Scoring system failed, but it is what it is. We’re starting on the inside, which is great. It’s such a turnaround from the race in Phoenix two weeks ago. There are a lot of reasons to be happy today and I’m proud of the guys.”