James Hinchcliffe may have been fastest in IndyCar first practice at Long Beach but second fastest Mike Conway was the most impressive. Conway was fastest most of the session but ended only 0.0133 seconds off Hinchcliffe's fastest lap of 1:09.8157. This is Conway's only announced race of the 2013 season and his first since Baltimore last September. Takuma Sato was third followed by Simona de Silvestro and Barber race winner Ryan Hunter-Reay. Hinchcliffe and Conway were the only two drivers to break into the 1:09 bracket.
Eight different teams are represented in the top ten with Honda taking positions sixth through ninth with Justin Wilson, Scott Dixon, Graham Rahal and Josef Newgarden and the Chevrolet of JR Hildebrand rounding out the top ten. The third Rahal-Letterman-Lanigan entry of James Jakes was eleventh fastest, ahead of Simon Pagenaud and Will Power. Dario Franchitti found himself in fourteenth with Helio Castroneves in fifteenth.
Other notables from the session include Tony Kanaan 16th, Marco Andretti 17th, Tristan Vautier 21st, Alex Tagliani 23rd and AJ Allmendinger 26th.
One second covered the top eighteen times with ten of those cars being Hondas and eight being Chevrolets.
Second Friday practice will take place at 5:30 p.m. ET.
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