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Andretti Fastest On Wet And Cold Day At Long Beach

Long Beach, Calif. – Rain and cold conditions put a dark cloud over race activities at Long Beach on Friday. For the IZOD IndyCar Series, 20 of the 26 teams completed practice laps during the first day of practice for Sunday’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, the 38th running of the famed street race.

Marco Andretti led the way with a speed of 91.737 miles per hour around the 11-turn, 1.968-mile course. He drove the Team RC Cola Chevrolet fielded by Andretti Autosport. In total, he completed 11 laps and his fast lap came on dry tires.

With Chevrolet power, Andretti is one of 11 drivers losing 10 spots on the starting grid due to the manufacturer changing its engines after a problem cropped up earlier this week during a test at the Infineon Raceway.

“The (engine) change is the dark cloud, and we tried to get as much of a feel on the dry parts of the circuit as we could,” he said. “I think we are close; we will see what happens in the next practice. It (engine change) is hindering and demoralizing, especially if you have a pole car. It will be tough, and there will be some interesting strategies and should make for a fun race.”

Second fastest of the day was Takuma Sato in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda. His speed was 90.895 mph.

“There were tough conditions out there,” Sato said. “It was too dry for the wet tire and too wet for the dry tire, due to the conditions. We wanted to make sure our set-up was approximately what we wanted. Initially, we put on wet tire and when there were quite a few dry lines, we decided to put on a dry tire and I did 2

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