INDYCAR: Power tops first GP of Indy practice

Will Power opened the Month of May by going fastest in the first practice session for the GP of Indianapolis on the IMS road course.

Power secured his place at the top with his final flying lap; the Team Penske driver crossing the beam in 1m09.8943s to produce the only sub-1m10s time of the morning.

"Good start for the Team Penske boys; way too early to start making any predictions," Power said.

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Graham Rahal had the most industrious session: he topped the field's lap count at 32, and also came closest to matching Power, with his best lap falling just 0.1756s short.

"The Chevys have a huge top speed advantage," Rahal told RACER.com. "I'd say four or five miles an hour. But I think we're quicker in the corners everywhere. I put on new tires but I ran out of fuel on my last lap, or I would have had a low 1m08. Not much we can do about the power, we'll just keep working on the car, but it's a good start to the weekend."

As encouraging as Rahal's early pace might be for Honda, there was a queue of Chevys immediately behind him on the timing screens, spearheaded by a Penske 3-4-5 comprising of Juan Pablo Montoya, points leader Simon Pagenaud, and Helio Castroneves. The latter had also caused a bit of excitement 10 minutes before the end of the session when he stopped out on the track, prompting a brief spell under reds to allow the No. 3 to be retrieved.

Scott Dixon finished just outside the top five, but said that he wasn't paying any attention to the running order.

"I don't pay much attention to first practice," he said. "Let's be honest, you won't know anything until qualifying anyway."

Prior to Castroneves' hiccup, Matthew Brabham's first IndyCar session came to an early end when his Team Murray Chevy stopped on the track with a missing left-rear wheel nut after just 20 minutes. The car returned to the garage having completed only three laps.

"Obviously [missing some track time] is going to hurt us," he said. "But we'll keep plugging through"

The only driver who failed to complete a time was James Hinchcliffe, who was unable to run because a fuel line leak caused a fire as he was about to start practice and burned through the car's wiring.

"I think there was an issue with the engine installation, and we're just playing it safe," Hinchcliffe said. "It's just first practice; there's no point creating any more work for ourselves than we need to."