Hunter-Reay Heads Damp Friday Practice for Honda at New Orleans

* Posts second-quickest time in abbreviated afternoon session
* Five Honda drivers in top-10 afternoon results
* James Hinchcliffe leads Honda effort in morning practice

On a damp but drying track, in a practice session delayed and shortened to 30 minutes after afternoon showers soaked the NOLA Motorsports Park road course, Ryan Hunter-Reay led the way for Honda in preparation for Sunday’s Indy Grand Prix of New Orleans, setting the second-fastest time in his #28 Andretti Autosport DHL Honda.

Making her second appearance for Andretti Autosport, Simona de Silvestro posted the fifth-fastest time in the afternoon practice, with teammate Carlos Munoz seventh in his Andretti Autosport Honda. Takuma Sato and Graham Rahal rounded out the top 10 for Honda, respectively. Teams and drivers spent the morning practice learning the 2.74-mile NOLA road course, making its first appearance on the Verizon IndyCar Series schedule in 2015. James Hinchcliffe led the way for Honda in that practice with the eighth-quickest time.

Activities continue Saturday with a final practice session, followed by “Fast Six” knockout qualifying that will set the 24-car field for Sunday’s race. The second round round of the 16-race 2015 season starts at 3 p.m. Sunday, with live television coverage on the NBC Sports Network.

Ryan Hunter-Reay (#28 Andretti Autosport DHL Honda) 2nd fastest in afternoon practice: “It was an incomplete day for us with the DHL Honda. In the first session we never really got going in our changes. We were trying some big experiments with some of the aero package that didn’t end up panning out for us, so we ended up going fastest in our first outing – which was unfortunate. But we were able to get a little track time at the end of the day and I think we have a potential direction for tomorrow.”