INDYCAR: Carpenter leads Chevy sweep of FP1

Ed Carpenter Racing drivers Ed Carpenter and Josef Newgarden posted the two fastest laps of the opening IndyCar practice session to lead an all-Chevy top 10. Carpenter's No. 20 Fuzzy's Vodka Chevy (19.122s) edged Newgarden's No. 21 ECR Chevy (19.140s), and the rest of the top-10 was comprised of the four Chip Ganassi Racing Chevys and four Team Penske Chevys. The fastest Honda belonged to Andretti Autosport's Ryan Hunter-Reay in the No. 28 DHL entry (19.388s). The 2014 Indy 500 winner's Dallara DW12-Honda was 0.265s adrift from Carpenter's best.

"We did our qualifying [simulation] run and the car felt great," RHR told RACER. "That's the only issue."

RHR's comment – which pointed to a driver's worst fear of a car feeling fantastic, yet being much slower than the main opposition – is something the rest of the Honda camp is likely encountering. Today's rapid schedule had a lone 75-minute practice session prior to this afternoon's qualifying, which led some teams to try low-downforce qualifying setups earlier than normal, and in the Honda camp, some teams tried 2015 and 2016 rear wheel pods while searching for the optimal aerodynamic setup.

Barring KVSH Racing's Sebastien Bourdais, who was 15th in his Hydroxycut Chevy, Honda teams were relegated to the bottom half of the lap times.

Two hard crashes took place early in the session at A.J. Foyt Racing's Takuma Sato hammered the Turn 2 wall in his ABC Supply Honda. Schmidt Peterson Motorsports' James Hinchcliffe hit in almost the same spot shortly after practice resumed, and pummeled his ARROW Electronics Honda in the impact. Both drivers were checked, released, and cleared to drive.

Next up is qualifying at 5 p.m. ET, and the day ends with a 30-minute final practice starting at 6:15 p.m. PT.

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