Dixon, Sato Head Honda Attack in Practice at Toronto
• Scott Dixon dominates practice, leads both sessions for Honda
• Takuma Sato ends day second quickest
• Honda drivers, teams claim top five positions for the day
TORONTO, Ont., Canada (July 13, 2018) – Scott Dixon headed the time charts in both practice sessions today in preparation for Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto, as Honda drivers claimed the top five positions – and eight of the top 10 – for the day.
In the morning session, Dixon led a 1-6 Honda sweep, followed by Graham Rahal, Alexander Rossi, Takuma Sato, Marco Andretti and Sebastien Bourdais. In the slightly faster afternoon session, it was Dixon again at the top of the charts, followed by Sato, Andretti, Rahal and Rossi. All five Honda teams had at least one driver in the top 10 for the day.
Activities continue Saturday in Toronto with final practice and qualifying for Sunday’s 85-lap race. The 12th round of the 2018 season begin at 3 p.m. EDT Sunday, with live television coverage on the NBC Sports Network.
Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) Fastest in Friday practice: “A big shout out to the people here who look after the track. They’ve worked really hard [making improvements to the racing surface] and Turn One alone is going to create a lot of great racing. There are a lot of great updates. The PNC Bank car rolled off [the transporter] really fast, and I expect the competition to continue to be really tough. We put a good lap together on the [softer compound] ‘red’ Firestone tires today, but I expect a lot more drivers to do that tomorrow for qualifying, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens for the pole.”
James Hinchcliffe (Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda) Race winner in Iowa last week, 10th fastest in opening-day practice: “Today was okay. Obviously, there’s a lot to learn coming to a street circuit with a new car. They’ve done some paving work to the track which is another curveball to throw at us, but the Arrow Electronics team did a solid job. We didn’t get the best run on [Firestone alternate tires] reds, and we had a problem with my seatbelt on my fast lap. We’ll take a look at the data we got today and talk over with Robbie [Wickens] and the No. 6 guys and make sure we can put a good performance tomorrow for the hometown crowd.”