Pigot was seen to catch the inside curbing on the final turn which bounced his car into the air and sent him plowing off track on the outside of the turn and head-on into a concrete wall, just past where the tire protection ends.

The young American emerged holding his lower back but he has since been checked, released and cleared by IndyCar medical to race. The team will be reverting to a backup car as the crashed car’s Dallara tub is too badly damaged.

Rahal’s 65.0239sec lap, set on his 16^th of 23 laps, put him over quarter-second clear of Team Penske-Chevrolet’s Helio Castroneves with Marco Andretti of Andretti Autosport-Honda a further two-tenths behind, leading his teammates Takuma Sato and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet’s Conor Daly, who will start from 11^th – his highest starting position of the season – was sixth fastest and a man who set the same personal achievement, Esteban Gutierrez, showed similar form to go 10^th fastest for Dale Coyne Racing-Honda.

IndyCar 2017 Mid-Ohio

Cla	#	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	15	Graham Rahal	23	1'05.0239			125.012
2	3	Helio Castroneves	22	1'05.3007	0.2768	0.2768	124.483
3	27	Marco Andretti	22	1'05.5130	0.4891	0.2123	124.079
4	26	Takuma Sato	18	1'05.5152	0.4913	0.0022	124.075
5	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	22	1'05.5252	0.5013	0.0100	124.056
6	4	Conor Daly	20	1'05.5776	0.5537	0.0524	123.957
7	2	Josef Newgarden	23	1'05.6179	0.5940	0.0403	123.881
8	98	Alexander Rossi	22	1'05.6551	0.6312	0.0372	123.811
9	9	Scott Dixon	24	1'05.6825	0.6586	0.0274	123.759
10	18	Esteban Gutierrez	22	1'05.7462	0.7223	0.0637	123.639
11	19	Ed Jones	19	1'05.7739	0.7500	0.0277	123.587
12	1	Simon Pagenaud	24	1'05.9614	0.9375	0.1875	123.236
13	14	Carlos Munoz	21	1'06.0098	0.9859	0.0484	123.145
14	10	Tony Kanaan	21	1'06.0224	0.9985	0.0126	123.122
15	21	J.R. Hildebrand	20	1'06.0865	1.0626	0.0641	123.002
16	12	Will Power	23	1'06.1823	1.1584	0.0958	122.824
17	7	Mikhail Aleshin	21	1'06.3210	1.2971	0.1387	122.568
18	8	Max Chilton	24	1'06.3606	1.3367	0.0396	122.494
19	83	Charlie Kimball	21	1'06.3907	1.3668	0.0301	122.439
20	5	James Hinchcliffe	19	1'06.7016	1.6777	0.3109	121.868
21	20	Spencer Pigot	5	1'07.1156	2.0917	0.4140	121.116