In the closing half hour of practice, Hildebrand was at the tail of a chain of eight cars when his Dreyer & Reinbold Racing-Chevrolet twitched hard out of Turn 3, and he didn’t have room to gather it up before slapping the SAFER barrier with both right-hand wheels and sliding along the wall.

Hildebrand was checked and released swiftly, given the lack of severity of impact.

There were few significant speed improvements in the second half of the day, although Will Power, who already had the top no-tow speed of the day, nudged the bar a little higher, setting a 223.971mph on his best qualifying simulation, before the 1.4-bar boost is introduced for Fast Friday (tomorrow) and the qualifying weekend.

Sebastien Bourdais was second on the no-tow charts for Dale Coyne Racing-Honda, with Charlie Kimball a highly impressive third for Carlin-Chevrolet. Remarkably, the day’s overall pacesetter, Rahal, was only 34^th on the no-tow times.

Another driver disappointingly far down the speed charts was 2014 Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay, 26^th overall although eighth on the no-tow charts.

Indy 500 practice, Day 3

Cla	#	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	15	Graham Rahal	102	39.8148			226.047
2	14	Tony Kanaan	62	39.8414	0.0266	0.0266	225.896
3	98	Marco Andretti	86	39.8964	0.0816	0.0550	225.584
4	20	Ed Carpenter	97	39.9834	0.1686	0.0870	225.093
5	24	Sage Karam	72	40.0142	0.1994	0.0308	224.920
6	1	Josef Newgarden	75	40.0510	0.2362	0.0368	224.713
7	19	Zachary Claman De Melo	60	40.0596	0.2448	0.0086	224.665
8	3	Helio Castroneves	110	40.0757	0.2609	0.0161	224.575
9	21	Spencer Pigot	86	40.1336	0.3188	0.0579	224.251
10	88	Gabby Chaves	73	40.1463	0.3315	0.0127	224.180
11	22	Simon Pagenaud	87	40.1502	0.3354	0.0039	224.158
12	9	Scott Dixon	98	40.1834	0.3686	0.0332	223.973
13	12	Will Power	90	40.1837	0.3689	0.0003	223.971
14	4	Matheus Leist	59	40.2242	0.4094	0.0405	223.746
15	18	Sébastien Bourdais	82	40.2340	0.4192	0.0098	223.691
16	64	Oriol Servia	62	40.2431	0.4283	0.0091	223.641
17	7	Jay Howard	73	40.2493	0.4345	0.0062	223.606
18	60	Jack Harvey	94	40.2584	0.4436	0.0091	223.556
19	10	Ed Jones	79	40.2903	0.4755	0.0319	223.379
20	66	J.R. Hildebrand	57	40.2954	0.4806	0.0051	223.351
21	23	Charlie Kimball	32	40.3002	0.4854	0.0048	223.324
22	27	Alexander Rossi	84	40.3625	0.5477	0.0623	222.979
23	29	Carlos Munoz	78	40.3627	0.5479	0.0002	222.978
24	6	Robert Wickens	63	40.3793	0.5645	0.0166	222.886
25	32	Kyle Kaiser	91	40.4023	0.5875	0.0230	222.760
26	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	92	40.4102	0.5954	0.0079	222.716
27	59	Max Chilton	45	40.4191	0.6043	0.0089	222.667
28	25	Stefan Wilson	96	40.4684	0.6536	0.0493	222.396
29	33	James Davison	81	40.4890	0.6742	0.0206	222.283
30	13	Danica Patrick	68	40.5011	0.6863	0.0121	222.216
31	5	James Hinchcliffe	83	40.5118	0.6970	0.0107	222.157
32	63	Pippa Mann	69	40.5198	0.7050	0.0080	222.114
33	30	Takuma Sato	89	40.5815	0.7667	0.0617	221.776
34	17	Conor Daly	89	40.6168	0.8020	0.0353	221.583
35	26	Zach Veach	106	40.6608	0.8460	0.0440	221.343