Will Power spun in the closing minute as he had to swerve off line to avoid his Team Penske-Chevrolet teammate Simon Pagenaud who was driving very slow at Turn 9, the blind-crested right-hander.

Power let his broadside and stalled car roll backward to get as far off the racing line as possible, but Tony Kanaan’s AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy was rammed off course by an unsighted Charlie Kimball in the #23 Carlin-Chevy, and lost his front wing. Meanwhile Kanaan had to be bump-started.

This followed on from two more incidents, that saw Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ Robert Wickens stopping on track with an engine failure exiting Turn 4, after he'd completed just six laps, and Matheus Leist also brought out a red flag by running off course in the second Foyt machine.

Penske’s defending race-winner Josef Newgarden finished second, 0.34sec off Bourdais’ top time of 65.5784sec – 123.955mph around the 2.258-mile course.

Five-time Mid-Ohio winner Scott Dixon was third fastest for Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda, with teammate Ed Jones in sixth. Between them were Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Takuma Sato and Ed Carpenter Racing’s Spencer Pigot.

Ryan Hunter-Reay was top of the Andretti Autosport contingent in seventh, with teammates Alexander Rossi, Marco Andretti and Zach Veach in 10^th, 12^th and 15^th.

James Hinchcliffe was eighth for SPM ahead of local hero Graham Rahal (RLLR).

Pietro Fittipaldi, who is making his IndyCar return this weekend after his leg-breaking sportscar shunt at Spa in May, was 17^th, 1.5sec behind Coyne teammate Bourdais. He is having his brake master-cylinder changed for FP2 to make the brake pedal more sensitive, in order to help ease his recovering left leg.

Conor Daly, preparing for his second start with the Harding Racing team in place of Gabby Chaves, was 24th and last.

Second practice begins at 2.35pm local (Eastern) time.

Cla	#	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	18	Sébastien Bourdais	11	1'05.5784			123.955
2	1	Josef Newgarden	15	1'05.9167	0.3383	0.3383	123.319
3	9	Scott Dixon	13	1'06.2157	0.6373	0.2990	122.762
4	30	Takuma Sato	13	1'06.2424	0.6640	0.0267	122.713
5	21	Spencer Pigot	12	1'06.2546	0.6762	0.0122	122.690
6	10	Ed Jones	13	1'06.2717	0.6933	0.0171	122.659
7	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	14	1'06.2758	0.6974	0.0041	122.651
8	5	James Hinchcliffe	12	1'06.3287	0.7503	0.0529	122.553
9	15	Graham Rahal	13	1'06.3541	0.7757	0.0254	122.506
10	27	Alexander Rossi	15	1'06.3956	0.8172	0.0415	122.430
11	22	Simon Pagenaud	14	1'06.4026	0.8242	0.0070	122.417
12	98	Marco Andretti	13	1'06.6549	1.0765	0.2523	121.954
13	4	Matheus Leist	19	1'06.7972	1.2188	0.1423	121.694
14	12	Will Power	16	1'06.9006	1.3222	0.1034	121.506
15	26	Zach Veach	18	1'06.9459	1.3675	0.0453	121.423
16	59	Max Chilton	17	1'07.0122	1.4338	0.0663	121.303
17	19	Pietro Fittipaldi	11	1'07.0696	1.4912	0.0574	121.199
18	14	Tony Kanaan	10	1'07.0699	1.4915	0.0003	121.199
19	20	Jordan King	20	1'07.0837	1.5053	0.0138	121.174
20	23	Charlie Kimball	13	1'07.0932	1.5148	0.0095	121.157
21	6	Robert Wickens	6	1'07.2767	1.6983	0.1835	120.826
22	60	Jack Harvey	15	1'07.3029	1.7245	0.0262	120.779
23	32	Rene Binder	19	1'07.4253	1.8469	0.1224	120.560
24	88	Conor Daly	13	1'07.7274	2.1490	0.3021	120.022