Much more pleasant weather awaited the teams and drivers on Sunday morning at Detroit Belle Isle, certainly warmer than Saturday even though showers were still possible for later on in the day during the race itself.
Mike Conway and Tony Kanaan led the early times, and once they came back into pit lane for tweaks and tyres it was back to the usual suspects including Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves, Justin Wilson, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Simon Pagenaud to continue driving the times down.
Dixon was the first to record a time below the 71s mark, with a lap of 1:11.7854s coming just ahead of the midpoint of the 30 minute warm-up session; Dixon was also the latest driver to have to stage evasive action to avoid another squirrel fatality at the Belle Isle park.
Dixon's target time was finally bettered eight minutes later by Will Power, who went top with a lap of 1:11.6613s, and then Graham Rahal went a tenth of a second faster still to go top with a lap of 1:11.5597s, which proved to be the best time of the morning even though Dixon trimmed some time off his best to nip into second ahead of Power with a lap of 1:11.6282s as the chequered flag came out.
There were no incidents or cautions during the final warm-up practice session.
Update: KV Racing confirmed that Rubens Barrichello will switch to a backup chassis for the race after continuing to be unhappy in the primary car. Normally that would drop Barrichello to last place on the grid, but an engine change penalty for Simona de Silvestro held over from
Indianapolis means that the Brazilian will start from 24th with the Swiss driver behind him from 25th.
Sunday Warm-up times1.
Graham Rahal Ganassi (Honda)
104.137mph 1:11.5597s (23 laps)
2.
Scott Dixon Ganassi (Honda)
104.037mph 1:11.6282s
+ 0.0685s (20 laps)
3.
Will Power Penske (Chevrolet)
103.989mph 1:11.6613s
+ 0.1016s (23 laps)
4.
Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti (Chevrolet)
103.632mph 1:11.9083s
+ 0.3486s (17 laps)
5.
Sebastien Bourdais Dragon (Chevrolet)
103.362mph 1:12.0962s
+ 0.5365s (17 laps)
6.
Mike Conway AJ Foyt (Honda)
103.213mph 1:12.2001s
+ 0.6404s (13 laps)
7.
Tony Kanaan KV Racing (Chevrolet)
103.152mph 1:12.2429s
+ 0.6832s (17 laps)
8.
Justin Wilson Dale Coyne (Honda)
103.032mph 1:12.3271s
+ 0.7674s (18 laps)
9.
Simon Pagenaud Schmidt-Hamilton (Honda)
102.922mph 1:12.4046s
+ 0.8449s (18 laps)
10.
Alex Tagliani BHA (Honda)
102.92mph 1:12.4058s
+ 0.8461s (16 laps)
11.
James Hinchcliffe Andretti (Chevrolet)
102.823mph 1:12.4739s
+ 0.9142s (21 laps)
12.
Helio Castroneves Penske (Chevrolet)
102.8mph 1:12.4904s
+ 0.9307s (24 laps)
13.
Oriol Servia Panther/DRR (Chevrolet)
102.425mph 1:12.7554s
+ 1.1957s (21 laps)
14.
Josef Newgarden SFHR (Honda)
102.27mph 1:12.8662s
+ 1.3065s (14 laps)
15.
Dario Franchitti Ganassi (Honda)
102.158mph 1:12.9458s
+ 1.3861s (15 laps)
16.
Takuma Sato RLL (Honda)
102.009mph 1:13.0522s
+ 1.4925s (21 laps)
17.
James Jakes Dale Coyne (Honda)
101.951mph 1:13.0938s
+ 1.5341s (18 laps)
18.
Rubens Barrichello KV Racing (Chevrolet)
101.543mph 1:13.3876s
+ 1.8279s (14 laps)
19.
Ryan Briscoe Penske (Chevrolet)
101.538mph 1:13.3912s
+ 1.8315s (15 laps)
20.
JR Hildebrand Panther (Chevrolet)
101.378mph 1:13.5068s
+ 1.9471s (17 laps)
21.
EJ Viso KV Racing (Chevrolet)
101.267mph 1:13.5880s
+ 2.0283s (14 laps)
22.
Charlie Kimball Ganassi (Honda)
100.917mph 1:13.8426s
+ 2.2829s (9 laps)
23.
Marco Andretti Andretti (Chevrolet)
100.906mph 1:13.8508s
+ 2.2911s (16 laps)
24.
Ed Carpenter ECR (Chevrolet)
99.94mph 1:14.5648s
+ 3.0051s (16 laps)
25.
Simona de Silvestro HVM (Lotus)
99.626mph 1:14.7998s
+ 3.2401s (17 laps)
Total laps: 434