Newgarden lapped the 0.894-mile oval in just 17.3397sec, an average speed of 185.609, as last year’s second- and fourth-placed finishers, his teammates Will Power and Simon Pagenaud, finished 0.4 and 1.0mph in arrears in second and third.

Ed Carpenter finished fourth, having spent almost the entire session at the top of the sheets, until a late-session yellow – caused by a crash for his teammate JR Hildebrand – provided everyone with the ideal opportunity to try a qualifying simulation on fresh tires.

Hildebrand lost the tail of the car when he ran over the line at the bottom of the track and backed up the track and into the wall, taking an apparently sizeable bang to his helmet on the car’s headrest.

Marco Andretti, whose last win came here six years ago, finished as top Honda driver in fifth, ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda’s Tony Kanaan, Mikhail Aleshin’s Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda, Alexander Rossi’s Andretti Autosport entry, James Hinchcliffe in the second SPM car, and Graham Rahal in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda.

Esteban Gutierrez, in his first oval qualifying session, finished 19th, 1.15mph and six places behind Dale Coyne Racing-Honda teammate Ed Jones.

Dixon and the Ganassi #9 team were forced to miss the last 20 minutes of the session, as a penalty for transgressions at Road America, where the four-time series champion scored his first win of the session.

Following fuel pump issues that afflicted it in raceday warm-up, the team was cited for Dixon driving from the paddock to the pitlane under power (as opposed to being towed or pushed), for starting an installation lap 56sec after the checkered flag fell on the session, and for failing to obey the direction of IndyCar.

A five-figure fine was added to the time loss, with Dixon finishing the session in 16th.

Practice results:

Pos.	#	Driver	Time	Gap	Mph
1	2	Josef Newgarden	17.3397		185.609
2	12	Will Power	17.3723	0.0326	185.260
3	1	Simon Pagenaud	17.4533	0.1136	184.401
4	20	Ed Carpenter	17.4783	0.1386	184.137
5	27	Marco Andretti	17.4937	0.1540	183.975
6	10	Tony Kanaan	17.5133	0.1736	183.769
7	7	Mikhail Aleshin	17.5160	0.1763	183.741
8	98	Alexander Rossi	17.5232	0.1835	183.665
9	5	James Hinchcliffe	17.5240	0.1843	183.657
10	15	Graham Rahal	17.5250	0.1853	183.646
11	83	Charlie Kimball	17.5621	0.2224	183.258
12	8	Max Chilton	17.6044	0.2647	182.818
13	19	Ed Jones	17.6267	0.2870	182.587
14	14	Carlos Munoz	17.6369	0.2972	182.481
15	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	17.6522	0.3125	182.323
16	9	Scott Dixon	17.6554	0.3157	182.290
17	21	J.R. Hildebrand	17.6994	0.3597	181.837
18	3	Helio Castroneves	17.7076	0.3679	181.752
19	18	Esteban Gutierrez	17.7369	0.3972	181.452
20	26	Takuma Sato	17.7555	0.4158	181.262
21	4	Conor Daly	17.9606	0.6209	179.192