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Indianapolis road course IndyCar: Sebastien Bourdais leads practice

Sebastien Bourdais opened IndyCar's inaugural visit to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course by going fastest in the first practice session

The KV driver had been the pacesetter during the opening phase of the session, and leapt back to the top just under two minutes before the chequered flag with a 1m10.9335s effort.

He improved on that next time around for a best time of 1m10.5150s, leaving him a comfortable 0.3903 seconds clear of Andretti's Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Simon Pagenaud, who had also enjoyed a stint at the top of the timesheets, finished the morning third-fastest ahead of Josef Newgarden; the Sarah Fisher Hartman racer having recovered from an early spin into the Turn 4 gravel that prompted a spell under reds.

Reigning series champion Scott Dixon rounded out the top five.

Another driver who had led the session early on was Will Power, although the Penske driver did not make the same gains as many of his rivals during the final 20 minutes and he finished up 11th-fastest.

Aside from Newgarden's spin the session was interrupted just once, although the second red flag had nothing to do with an incident on the track: the cars were called back to pitlane due to a brief power failure in race control.

Follow the inaugural Indianapolis road course IndyCar race as it happens with AUTOSPORT Race Centre Live on Saturday May 10 from 8.30pm UK time

Pos  Driver              Team/Engine      Time        Gap
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais  KV/Chevy         1m10.5150s
 2.  Ryan Hunter-Reay    Andretti/Honda   1m10.9053s  +0.3903s
 3.  Simon Pagenaud      Schmidt/Honda    1m11.0045s  +0.4895s
 4.  Josef Newgarden     Fisher/Honda     1m11.0188s  +0.5038s
 5.  Scott Dixon         Ganassi/Chevy    1m11.0454s  +0.5304s
 6.  Mikhail Aleshin     Schmidt/Honda    1m11.1011s  +0.5861s
 7.  James Hinchcliffe   Andretti/Honda   1m11.1365s  +0.6215s
 8.  Ryan Briscoe        Ganassi/Chevy    1m11.1932s  +0.6782s
 9.  Carlos Munoz        Andretti/Honda   1m11.1973s  +0.6823s
10.  Jack Hawksworth     Herta/Honda      1m11.2059s  +0.6909s
11.  Will Power          Penske/Chevy     1m11.2115s  +0.6965s
12.  Sebastian Saavedra  KV/Chevy         1m11.2681s  +0.7531s
13.  Helio Castroneves   Penske/Chevy     1m11.3530s  +0.8380s
14.  Justin Wilson       Coyne/Honda      1m11.3875s  +0.8725s
15.  Marco Andretti      Andretti/Honda   1m11.4210s  +0.9060s
16.  Carlos Huertas      Coyne/Honda      1m11.4225s  +0.9075s
17.  Juan Pablo Montoya  Penske/Chevy     1m11.5309s  +1.0159s
18.  Oriol Servia        Rahal/Honda      1m11.5606s  +1.0456s
19.  Graham Rahal        Rahal/Honda      1m11.6178s  +1.1028s
20.  Tony Kanaan         Ganassi/Chevy    1m11.6328s  +1.1178s
21.  Franck Montagny     Andretti/Honda   1m11.6620s  +1.1470s
22.  Martin Plowman      Foyt/Honda       1m11.6926s  +1.1776s
23.  Charlie Kimball     Ganassi/Chevy    1m11.6952s  +1.1802s
24.  Takuma Sato         Foyt/Honda       1m11.9870s  +1.4720s
25.  Mike Conway         Carpenter/Chevy  1m12.0910s  +1.5760s

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