Newgarden, who has twice started from the front row at Sonoma Raceway, edged teammate Will Power – a five-time polesitter here – by 0.0372sec with his second flying lap of the morning. His 1min16.3950sec best equated to an average of 112.390mph around the 2.385-mile course.

Their teammate Simon Pagenaud, who dominated at Sonoma last year on his #98 Andretti Autosport entry, less than a tenth slower than Pagenaud.

Sebastien Bourdais (Dale Coyne Racing-Honda) was fifth, showing a clear return to form since his comeback from his fearsome Indianapolis injuries. He was just ahead of fellow four-time US open-wheel champion Scott Dixon, who is gunning for his fifth title this weekend, and arrives just three points behind Newgarden.

Ryan Hunter-Reay and Marco Andretti made it three Andretti Autosport cars in the top 10, separated by Brazilians Helio Castroneves (Penske) and Tony Kanaan (Ganassi).

Takuma Sato’s crew rebuilt his #26 car’s left-rear corner after his shunt in practice yesterday, and he wound up 12^th.

Jack Harvey, making his second road course IndyCar start, was 20^th, just half a second slower than Schmidt Peterson Motorsports teammate James Hinchcliffe.

Indy Lights ace Zachary Claman DeMelo, making his IndyCar debut this weekend was 1.55sec off the pace and 1sec slower than Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda teammate Graham Rahal.

Cla	#	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	2	Josef Newgarden	8	1'16.3950			112.390
2	12	Will Power	10	1'16.4322	0.0372	0.0372	112.335
3	1	Simon Pagenaud	10	1'16.5047	0.1097	0.0725	112.228
4	98	Alexander Rossi	13	1'16.5720	0.1770	0.0673	112.130
5	18	Sébastien Bourdais	15	1'16.6060	0.2110	0.0340	112.080
6	9	Scott Dixon	10	1'16.6197	0.2247	0.0137	112.060
7	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	9	1'16.6711	0.2761	0.0514	111.985
8	3	Helio Castroneves	7	1'16.7025	0.3075	0.0314	111.939
9	10	Tony Kanaan	8	1'16.7484	0.3534	0.0459	111.872
10	27	Marco Andretti	8	1'16.7843	0.3893	0.0359	111.820
11	15	Graham Rahal	13	1'16.9072	0.5122	0.1229	111.641
12	26	Takuma Sato	16	1'16.9676	0.5726	0.0604	111.553
13	5	James Hinchcliffe	7	1'17.1210	0.7260	0.1534	111.332
14	21	J.R. Hildebrand	16	1'17.3287	0.9337	0.2077	111.033
15	19	Ed Jones	11	1'17.3960	1.0010	0.0673	110.936
16	20	Spencer Pigot	13	1'17.4254	1.0304	0.0294	110.894
17	83	Charlie Kimball	13	1'17.4384	1.0434	0.0130	110.875
18	8	Max Chilton	12	1'17.4736	1.0786	0.0352	110.825
19	14	Carlos Munoz	13	1'17.5451	1.1501	0.0715	110.723
20	7	Jack Harvey	11	1'17.6168	1.2218	0.0717	110.620
21	4	Conor Daly	17	1'17.6566	1.2616	0.0398	110.564
22	13	Zachary Claman DeMelo	16	1'17.9506	1.5556	0.2940	110.147