Indianapolis 500 practice: Ryan Hunter-Reay leads Wednesday

As track action resumed after Tuesday's rainout, 2014 Indy 500 winner Hunter-Reay lapped the 2.5-mile Speedway at 228.202mph when running in a pack of cars on lap 11 of his 94.

That put him ahead of team-mate Carlos Munoz's 228.055mph, and buoyed Hunter-Reay after the Honda squad's struggles in practice a year ago.

"Coming off the year we had here last year where I couldn't get the car to do anything I needed it to, it's nice to have be up towards the front," he said.

Hunter-Reay believes it is too early to draw any comparisons between the latest iterations of the Honda and Chevrolet superspeedway aero kits or to predict who is in best shape heading into the weekend's qualifying sessions.

"Once the boost gets turned up, everything changes," he said.

"You have different torque curves in these engines and it'll be all over the place.

"Come Friday, absolutely expect Ganassi, Penske, and Ed Carpenter, these guys all to be up in the mix.

"Hopefully we're still in the mix."

Team Penske driver Will Power was third in a Dallara-Chevrolet at 227.733mph followed by fellow Chevy driver Josef Newgarden - the only frontrunner who got his top speed in Wednesday's final hour of practice.

Gabby Chaves gave Honda three drivers in the top five with a lap at 226.889mph for AJ Foyt Racing.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan rookie Spencer Pigot became the first driver to crash in practice this year.

He went deep into Turn 1 just under two hours into the practice and had a hard impact with the outside wall.

Pigot was checked at the IU Health Infield Emergency Medical Centre, cleared and released.

His Dallara-Honda suffered extensive damage to the left side so he was done for the day. The rookie hopes to return to the track on Thursday or Friday.

Thirty-four driver/car combinations posted times on Wednesday but that was a bit misleading as Schmidt Peterson team-mates James Hinchcliffe and Mikhail Aleshin ran several laps in each other's cars.

Former Formula 1 driver Max Chilton turned the most laps in Wednesday's six-hour session with 125.

WEDNESDAY RESULTS