2016 IndyCar champion Simon Pagenaud picked up where he left off last April, driving his Team Penske-Chevrolet to the top of the time sheets with his very last lap in FP1 at Phoenix’s ISM Raceway. Although James Hinchcliffe held top spot for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda for much of the session, in temperatures of 91degF ambient/127 track, the teams took a fairly measured approach to tire usage, and it wasn’t until the closing 12 minutes that times started to fall, and speeds started to climb. Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay was the first driver to eclipse the 182mph barrier with a lap of 20.2143sec around the 1.022-mile oval, but with six minutes to go, Pagenaud knocked...
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