Laptime improvements had been modest in the first half of the session, but the first stoppage, caused by Rossi, shook up the order. 

The Andretti Autosport driver lost the rear end of his car heading into the tight, long right-hander of Turn 15 and came to a stop on the outside grass. 

When the session resumed after a few minutes under red flag conditions, Newgarden was first to top the times with a lap of 1m07.9141s.

Power quickly went second as he lapped 0.2375s slower than Newgarden, and it was then a trio of IndyCar champions with Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon lapping third moments later. 

The increasingly quick laptimes were paused not long after as Newgarden suffered snap oversteer on the long run down to the heavy braking zone of Turn 5, spearing him across the gravel and to a stop. 

He was helped back onto the track and on his return to the pits was an eventful one as he sprayed the gravel debris on the track. 

After four tires were changed on his car and debris removed, he returned to the track and had no answer to Power’s improved benchmark of 1m07.5987s set moments before Newgarden’s off. 

Dixon was the next best finisher to Penske in third, while Carlin’s Max Chilton was an impressive fourth place. Dixon’s teammate Ed Jones was fifth ahead of the third Penske car of Simon Pagenaud.

Jordan King set his best lap in the final minutes for Ed Carpenter Racing to go seventh, relegating Graham Rahal to eighth.

The top 10 was rounded out by Dale Coyne Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais and Andretti’s Zach Veach, with the second Carlin entry of Charlie Kimball finishing 12th behind Takuma Sato.

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports had struggled at Barber in pre-season testing and did so again in first practice, with Robert Wickens finishing 13th and his teammate James Hinchcliffe only 18th.

Rossi’s earlier red flag disrupted his session, meaning he was only 20th at the flag.

First practice results:

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Mph
1	12	Will Power	Team Penske	1'07.5987		122.488
2	1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'07.9141	0.3154	121.919
3	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'08.2627	0.6640	121.296
4	59	Max Chilton	Carlin	1'08.2882	0.6895	121.251
5	10	Ed Jones	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'08.3086	0.7099	121.215
6	22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	1'08.3122	0.7135	121.208
7	20	Jordan King	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'08.3661	0.7674	121.113
8	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'08.3964	0.7977	121.059
9	18	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	1'08.4131	0.8144	121.029
10	26	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	1'08.4216	0.8229	121.014
11	30	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'08.4757	0.8770	120.919
12	23	Charlie Kimball	Carlin	1'08.5216	0.9229	120.838
13	6	Robert Wickens	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'08.5495	0.9508	120.789
14	98	Marco Andretti	Andretti Herta Autosport	1'08.7316	1.1329	120.469
15	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1'08.7758	1.1771	120.391
16	21	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'08.9642	1.3655	120.062
17	19	Zachary Claman De Melo	Dale Coyne Racing	1'09.0682	1.4695	119.882
18	5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'09.0896	1.4909	119.844
19	4	Matheus Leist	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	1'09.1182	1.5195	119.795
20	27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1'09.2393	1.6406	119.585
21	14	Tony Kanaan	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	1'09.2883	1.6896	119.501
22	88	Gabby Chaves	Harding Racing	1'09.6762	2.0775	118.835
23	32	Rene Binder	Juncos Racing	1'09.9615	2.3628	118.351