Hunter-Reay and Honda Fast in Final Practice

Ryan Hunter-Reay set the fastest lap of the weekend in final practice.

For the second time this weekend Ryan Hunter-Reay ended a practice session on top with the fastest time of the weekend and Honda ended a practice with six of the top ten. Hunter-Reay completed a session-low 16 laps in the final session and ran a weekend best 65.7082 on primary tires. The Mid-Ohio track record is a 65.347, set by Dario Franchitti in 1999 and matched by Gil de Ferran in 2000. Scott Dixon ran a session-high 28 laps and was second fastest, trailing Hunter-Reay by only 0.0960 seconds.

Hondas took the remaining three spots in the top five. Justin Wilson at one point had the fastest lap of the weekend but ended 0.1077 seconds back of Hunter-Reay. Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Motorsports Simon Pagenaud and Mikhail Aleshin were fourth and fifth. Only 0.0260 second separated the teammates on the timesheet. The Schmidt Peterson Hamilton drivers were followed by another pair of teammates as the KV pair ended sixth and seventh. Sébastien Bourdais was 0.2490 second back of Hunter-Reay and led his teammate Sebastián Saavedra by 0.0139 seconds.

Graham Rahal and James Hinchcliffe were the final two drivers to break into the 65-second bracket as they ran 65.9811 and 65.9815 respectively. Ryan Briscoe rounded out the top ten, 0.3268 seconds off Hunter-Reay.

Will Power followed his fellow Australian in eleventh. Carlos Muñoz was twelfth with defending Mid-Ohio winner Charlie Kimball in thirteenth. Marco Andretti was fourteenth and Hélio Castroneves rounding out the top fifteen. Josef Newgarden was sixteenth followed by Colombians Carlos Huertas and Juan Pablo Montoya on the time sheet. Tony Kanaan was nineteenth for the second consecutive practice with Mike Conway rounding out the top twenty. Takuma Sato and Jack Hawksworth rounded out the field.

The top twenty-one drivers were covered by 0.6447 seconds with the entire field covered by 1.3237 seconds.

Should these times carry off to qualify, here are the drivers that would advance from round one:

Group one- Wilson, Pagenaud, Aleshin, Hinchcliffe, Briscoe, Power. Not advancing: Castroneves, Montoya, Kanaan, Conway, Sato.

Group two: Hunter-Reay, Dixon, Bourdais, Saavedra, Rahal, Muñoz. Not advancing: Kimball, Andretti, Newgarden, Huertas, Hawksworth.

Qualifying is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. ET. There is a slight chance of rain in the forecast.