With Andretti drivers having sampled Carpenter’s car on two occasions, I asked if RHR might try to expand the program by working his way into a testing swap with Team Penske’s Will Power…

Tristan Vautier sets his carbon brake discs alight into Sonoma's Turn 11 hairpin. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)

“I’ll go try his car…but when it’s time to live up to my side of the deal and let jump in my car, I don’t know man, I don’t know man...” he said with a laugh.

“Being a single-car team there’s a lot of information going on during a one-day test, so it’s good to have another set of eyes on it. Hopefully we’ll see more of this in the future.”

If the presence of RHR in Carpenter’s car wasn’t enough of a shock at Sonoma, IndyCar rookie Tristan Vautier ended the day on top once again, giving the young Frenchman a rather impressive record in pre-season testing.

Combining the 23-year-old’s first IndyCar test in December--a one-day affair at Sebring, his one-day test at the same track last week and Wednesday’s run around the 12-turn, 2.3-mile California road course, the Frenchman has ended up P2, P1 and P1 so far with his Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda entry.

(All times from Sonoma were unofficial, barring those supplied directly by Honda for its drivers, and everyone had Vautier well clear of the field.)

Vautier led a 1-2-3 for France in Sonoma, clocking a 78.56-second lap at the end of the day to move ahead of the Chevy-powered Dragon Racing entry piloted by Sebastien Bourdais (78.63) and his Schmidt teammate Simon Pagenaud (78.90).

Based on his pace in testing, the 2012 Firestone Indy Lights champion is looking like a formidable addition to the IndyCar grid.

The combination of Vautier, left, a promising IndyCar rookie, and Allan McDonald, right, a championship-winning engineer, has delivered immediate results for the Schmidt team. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)

“I didn’t set any expectations for myself before, but there’s so much I have to learn about the car and the races,” he said. “I know I can be fast with what the team gives me and Honda gives me. Before that last run, I was a bit further off, so the good lap at the end was a big step, which was good, but none of these times count when the season starts...”

The French trio was followed by Tony Kanaan (P4, 79.0) who lost the morning after a fire broke out in the engine bay of his KV Racing Chevy. Team co-owner Jimmy Vasser attributed the fire to a faulty set of new exhaust headers.

Panther DRR’s Oriol Servia (P5, 79.2) was ecstatic with the one-week turnaround he and the team achieved with their Chevy-powered car after a disastrous run at Sebring, while Dragon Racing’s Sebastian Saavedra (P6, 79.5), KV’s Simona de Silvestro (P7, 79.8), Panther Racing’s JR Hildebrand (P8, 79.9) and Ed Carpenter (P9, 80.1) closed out testing for February.

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, covering IndyCar and sports cars. Now in his 27th year in the sport, Pruett was an open-wheel mechanic, engineer and manager before joining SPEED. He also contributes to RACER, Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett.