The Australian, who has three wins and five pole positions to his name so far this year, lapped the course just 0.0114sec faster than Josef Newgarden who currently leads the title race, the pair of them 0.2sec of their teammates Simon Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves.

Although AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy’s Conor Daly and Carlos Munoz took turns to threaten the Penske domination, they finished seventh and 16^th. And so it was Ed Jones in the Dale Coyne Racing-Honda who came closest to the Captain’s quartet once everyone did qualifying sims in the final 15mins of the one-hour session. The series’ only fulltime rookie was less than a tenth off Castroneves, but over a tenth faster than the next car, the Andretti Autosport-Honda of 2016 Indy 500 winner Alexander Rossi.

Behind Daly came the 2017 Indy winner, Takuma Sato, in a second Andretti machine, with Scott Dixon heading the Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda challenge in ninth, and Ryan Hunter-Reay completing the Top 1-.

Marco Andretti appeared to be struggling until putting on qualifying tires, and still only finished 13^th, while brave series returned Sebastien Bourdais put the second DCR car in 15^th.

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda were struggling, James Hinchcliffe and Sebastian Saavedra down in 19^th and 21^st, but the ugliest moment came when Max Chilton half spun the #8 Ganassi car at low speed and hit an official. However, the official didn’t need to go to medical, and Chilton received a fine and temporary hold in pitlane.

Next up is qualifying set for 7.30pm ET, 6.30pm local time.

Gateway, IndyCar FP1

Cla	#	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	12	Will Power	25	24.7318			181.952
2	2	Josef Newgarden	28	24.8235	0.0917	0.0917	181.280
3	20	Ed Carpenter	35	24.8620	0.1302	0.0385	180.999
4	14	Carlos Munoz	35	24.8631	0.1313	0.0011	180.991
5	3	Helio Castroneves	30	24.8662	0.1344	0.0031	180.969
6	1	Simon Pagenaud	27	24.9011	0.1693	0.0349	180.715
7	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	37	24.9028	0.1710	0.0017	180.703
8	9	Scott Dixon	30	24.9266	0.1948	0.0238	180.530
9	8	Max Chilton	32	25.0323	0.3005	0.1057	179.768
10	15	Graham Rahal	43	25.0522	0.3204	0.0199	179.625
11	4	Conor Daly	33	25.0837	0.3519	0.0315	179.399
12	83	Charlie Kimball	36	25.0878	0.3560	0.0041	179.370
13	18	Sébastien Bourdais	30	25.1856	0.4538	0.0978	178.674
14	26	Takuma Sato	27	25.2384	0.5066	0.0528	178.300
15	98	Alexander Rossi	31	25.2502	0.5184	0.0118	178.216
16	21	J.R. Hildebrand	41	25.2517	0.5199	0.0015	178.206
17	5	James Hinchcliffe	29	25.2996	0.5678	0.0479	177.868
18	19	Ed Jones	34	25.2998	0.5680	0.0002	177.867
19	10	Tony Kanaan	32	25.3093	0.5775	0.0095	177.800
20	27	Marco Andretti	27	25.3621	0.6303	0.0528	177.430
21	7	Sebastian Saavedra	35	25.9981	1.2663	0.6360	173.090