Indianapolis GP: Will Power smashes lap record in practice

Power's time of 1m07.7684s beat his own track record on the current variant of the road course by almost a second, and put him 0.3s ahead of Team Penske team-mate Josef Newgarden in second.

Power set his time on the softer red-walled Firestone tyre with 12 minutes to go, and before a red flag came out for Ryan Hunter-Reay coming to a halt on the backstraight, which disrupted a lot of drivers' and teams' qualifying simulations.

The session was resumed with just five minutes remaining, but it was concluded early when Carlos Munoz spun his Dallara-Chevrolet into the gravel with just two minutes to go.

Series returnee Juan Pablo Montoya, who is only racing in this event and the Indianapolis 500 for Penske this year, was third, with Alexander Rossi fourth, nearly half a second behind Power.

Helio Castroneves was fifth, with James Hinchcliffe sixth. The Canadian driver, as well as his team-mate Mikhail Aleshin, visibly struggled with the set-up of their car throughout the session.

Max Chilton was seventh, with his time being set before the first red flag, with reigning champion Simon Pagenaud was one of those unable to complete a qualifying simulation run leaving him eighth after being top of the times for much of the session.

Sebastien Bourdais was ninth, ahead of Munoz's AJ Foyt Racing team-mate Conor Daly.

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