Barber IndyCar: Tristan Vautier sets practice pace then goes off

The rookie went to the top midway through the session with a lap of 1m.09.0120s, putting him 0.8 seconds under the official lap record held by Will Power, although the times were some way off those set at the Alabama track in testing last month.

As well as topping the timesheets, Vautier was also responsible for the only red flag of the session when he spun into the gravel at Turn 2 with five minutes remaining.

His car was undamaged, although the soggy conditions left from overnight rain led to some delays in retrieving his stricken Schmidt Peterson machine.

Second was Ganassi's Scott Dixon with a time 0.05s down on Vautier's, giving Honda-powered cars a one-two to kick off the weekend.

It would have been a one-two-three for the Japanese manufacturer, but Chevrolet-powered Ryan Hunter-Reay was able to improve his time in the five minutes that remained after the restart to jump ahead of Charlie Kimball, who had previously occupied third.

Kimball's time was still good enough for fourth ahead of Will Power, Dario Franchitti, Simona de Silvestro and Simon Pagenaud.

AJ Allendinger's competitive return to single-seaters began with him setting the ninth-best time, just shading Penske team-mate Helio Castroneves.

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                   Time        Gap
 1.  Tristan Vautier      Schmidt Dallara-Honda      1m09.0120s
 2.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m09.0646s  + 0.0526s
 3.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m09.1917s  + 0.1797s
 4.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m09.2798s  + 0.2678s
 5.  Will Power           Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m09.2806s  + 0.2686s
 6.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m09.2883s  + 0.2763s
 7.  Simona de Silvestro  KV Dallara-Chevy           1m09.3396s  + 0.3276s
 8.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt Dallara-Honda      1m09.3443s  + 0.3323s
 9.  AJ Allmendinger      Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m09.3822s  + 0.3702s
10.  Helio Castroneves    Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m09.4241s  + 0.4121s
11.  Oriol Servia         Panther/DRR Dallara-Chevy  1m09.4456s  + 0.4336s
12.  James Jakes          Rahal Dallara-Honda        1m09.4509s  + 0.4389s
13.  Takuma Sato          Foyt Dallara-Honda         1m09.4812s  + 0.4692s
14.  Tony Kanaan          KV Dallara-Chevy           1m09.4933s  + 0.4813s
15.  James Hinchcliffe    Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m09.5206s  + 0.5086s
16.  Josef Newgarden      Fisher Dallara-Honda       1m09.6703s  + 0.6583s
17.  Marco Andretti       Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m09.6993s  + 0.6873s
18.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dragon Dallara-Chevy       1m09.7329s  + 0.7209s
19.  Alex Tagliani        Herta Dallara-Honda        1m09.7870s  + 0.7750s
20.  EJ Viso              Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m09.7962s  + 0.7842s
21.  Graham Rahal         Rahal Dallara-Honda        1m09.8239s  + 0.8119s
22.  Justin Wilson        Coyne Dallara-Honda        1m09.9008s  + 0.8888s
23.  JR Hildebrand        Panther Dallara-Chevy      1m10.0602s  + 1.0482s
24.  Sebastian Saavedra   Dragon Dallara-Chevy       1m10.1026s  + 1.0906s
25.  Ed Carpenter         Carpenter Dallara-Chevy    1m11.0089s  + 1.9969s
26.  Ana Beatriz          Coyne Dallara-Honda        1m12.2367s  + 3.2247s