By alley - Jun 23, 2017, 7:35 PM ET

Hinchcliffe working on comfort despite speed

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports' James Hinchcliffe is hoping to find dramatic improvements in his No.5 Honda-powered car's handling overnight, despite ending Friday practice as the second-fastest Honda and sixth fastest overall.

Hinchcliffe ended the day 0.1s off Alexander Rossi with a best time of 1m43.4802s, but says that there's some work to be done before he can lean harder on the car.

"The team obviously has done a great job preparing, and once again rolled off the truck with a pretty fast race car," he said. "Fast doesn't always mean comfortable, though. It's a pretty big handful out there, I won't lie. We're battling different issues at the moment, but we're still pretty high in the times. It's a lot of work to do that kind of lap time. We'll work on it overnight, try to get it a little more comfortable and put ourselves in a position where I feel like I can push the car a little bit harder. Hopefully we can find a little bit more speed."

Hinchcliffe's fast-but-sketchy day in the No.5 completed a generally weird start to the weekend for the Schmidt team, which ended Friday not knowing for sure who will be in its No.7 sister car tomorrow.

DTM racer Robert Wickens

received a late call-up

to drive the car today after visa problems delayed Mikhael Aleshin's return from last weekend's 24 Hours of Le Mans. Aleshin is now en route to Wisconsin, but it is unclear when he will be available to drive.

"It's been a strange day because I'm not really sure if I'm doing the next session since I don't know when Mikhail is arriving – or if he's arriving," said Wickens, who ended the day in P20, albeit within a just few tenths of several series regulars. "So I'm going to work overnight as if I'm driving tomorrow morning, and if not, then hopefully I can help out the team somehow."