Will Power topped a fast morning session of Tuesday's IndyCar open test at Barber Motorsports Park.
On a morning where 18 drivers went under the official Barber lap record of 1m09.8529s, also set by Power, the Penske driver topped the charts with a best lap of 1m08.4984s. Andretti Autosport's James Hinchcliffe edged out teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay by 0.2 second to go second fastest, with Helio Castroneves just behind them.
Scott Dixon was quickest of the Honda-powered drivers in fifth, just ahead of fellow Ganassi driver Dario Franchitti and Rahal Letterman Lanigan's Mike Conway.
KV duo Tony Kanaan and Simona de Silvestro were next, with BHA's Alex Tagliani rounding out the top 10.
Track manager Mark Whitt told IndyCar.com recent diamond grinding of the track surface contributed to the fast times.
“It runs like a diamond-bladed polisher horizontal with the surface of the racetrack and takes the aggregate back down to the base," Whitt said. "We've been running 10 years so the aggregate gets exposed so we ground the aggregate to get it back down to the base, which makes a smoother surface but more grippy surface.”
The process is expected to prolong the life of the course, which is in use more than 220 days a year. Porsche driving school events and motorcycle and car club weekends followed the project before the IZOD IndyCar Series test.
The morning session was delayed 45 minutes because of a track temp below 50 degrees.
"I'm surprised they're doing it so fast," Whitt said, noting that rain all day March 11 washed away track rubber. "I'm waiting to see what they do when they get rubber on it."
Morning times:
1 Will Power, Chevy 1:08.4984 120.879
2 James Hinchcliffe, Chevy 1:08.5729 120.747 0.0745
3 Ryan Hunter-Reay, Chevy 1:08.7023 120.520 0.2039
4 Helio Castroneves, Chevy 1:08.7702 120.401 0.2718
5 Scott Dixon, Honda 1:08.9443 120.097 0.4459
6 Dario Franchitti, Honda 1:09.0381 119.934 0.5397
7 Mike Conway, Honda 1:09.0746 119.870 0.5762
8 Tony Kanaan, Chevy 1:09.1754 119.696 0.6770
9 Simona De Silvestro, Chevy 1:09.3779 119.346 0.8795
10 Alex Tagliani, Honda 1:09.3810 119.341 0.8826
11 Marco Andretti, Chevy 1:09.3822 119.339 0.8838
12 EJ Viso, Chevy 1:09.4549 119.214 0.9565
13 Justin Wilson, Honda 1:09.4960 119.144 0.9976
14 Graham Rahal, Honda 1:09.5559 119.041 1.0575
15 Charlie Kimball, Honda 1:09.6635 118.857 1.1651
16 Oriol Servia, Chevy 1:09.6774 118.833 1.1790
17 Josef Newgarden, Honda 1:09.7673 118.680 1.2689
18 Tristan Vautier, Honda 1:09.8132 118.602 1.3148
19 AJ Allmendinger, Chevy 1:09.9567 118.359 1.4583
20 Simon Pagenaud, Honda 1:10.8606 116.849 2.3622
21 Ed Carpenter, Chevy 1:11.5741 115.684 3.0757
22 Ana Beatriz, Honda 1:17.2520 107.182 8.7536
23 JR Hildebrand, Chevy 1:19.6445 103.962 11.1461
24 Sebastien Bourdais, Chevy 1:31.9743 90.025 23.4759