The afternoon’s running proved to be far more representative of Saturday's qualifying than the earlier first practice session and teams struggled to find a good balance in the hour allocated. 

A late red flag caused by Juncos Racing’s Rene Binder colliding with the tyre walls at Turn 16 was one of many accidents, and it created seven minutes of clean running at the end in a faux-qualifying simulation. 

With the majority of the field on the quicker red compound tires, the top spot was traded by the minute, but it was Newgarden who proved quickest, deposing Ed Carpenter Racing’s impressive Spencer Pigot before then improving his own time to 1m07.4345s. 

Newgarden also typified the IndyCar field’s difficulty to find a comfortable balance, with the Penske driver requiring extensive set-up tweaks midway through the session.

Dale Coyne Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais also benefited from the late run to the flag, going third in the final minutes after he almost hit the wall at Turn 5 earlier on.

Will Power had led the early stages of the practice session on scrubbed black compound tires and ended the day in fourth ahead of Andretti’s Alexander Rossi. 

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon went sixth, while Andretti’s Ryan Hunter-Reay was seventh despite a wild off at Turn 3 in the final minutes. Takuma Sato, Marco Andretti and Graham Rahal rounded out the top 10. 

Max Chilton continued a decent day for Carlin but finishing 11th ahead of a good showing from DCR’s Zachary Claman de Melo and Simon Pagenaud.

Pagenaud had limited running after he became one of many drivers to be caught out in the long run into Turn 5, skating across the gravel. Andretti’s Zach Veach also caused a red flag with a similar off.

Practice results:

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Mph
1	1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'07.4345		122.786
2	21	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'07.5372	0.1027	122.599
3	18	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	1'07.7971	0.3626	122.129
4	12	Will Power	Team Penske	1'07.8092	0.3747	122.107
5	27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1'07.8326	0.3981	122.065
6	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'07.8445	0.4100	122.044
7	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1'07.8829	0.4484	121.975
8	30	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'08.0628	0.6283	121.652
9	98	Marco Andretti	Andretti Herta Autosport	1'08.1040	0.6695	121.579
10	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'08.1076	0.6731	121.572
11	59	Max Chilton	Carlin	1'08.3530	0.9185	121.136
12	19	Zachary Claman De Melo	Dale Coyne Racing	1'08.3616	0.9271	121.121
13	22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	1'08.3698	0.9353	121.106
14	26	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	1'08.4867	1.0522	120.899
15	10	Ed Jones	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'08.4978	1.0633	120.880
16	6	Robert Wickens	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'08.5755	1.1410	120.743
17	20	Jordan King	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'08.7275	1.2930	120.476
18	5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	1'08.7317	1.2972	120.468
19	23	Charlie Kimball	Carlin	1'08.7466	1.3121	120.442
20	14	Tony Kanaan	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	1'08.9427	1.5082	120.100
21	4	Matheus Leist	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	1'09.2392	1.8047	119.585
22	32	Rene Binder	Juncos Racing	1'09.3583	1.9238	119.380
23	88	Gabby Chaves	Harding Racing	1'09.4198	1.9853	119.274