Texas IndyCar: Simon Pagenaud leads Penske one-two in practice

The Frenchman went to the top in the closing minutes with a fastest lap of 216.172mph, narrowly edging out team-mate Will Power's 216.126mph.

Takuma Sato was the only other driver to make it into the 216mph range, putting Honda on the board at third-fastest with a 216.078mph lap for AJ Foyt Racing.

Ganassi's Tony Kanaan and Scott Dixon, who led the early part of the session, finished up fourth and fifth-fastest respectively, while further back, Coyne stand-in driver Tristan Vautier made a strong start to end the morning in eighth.

A mostly uneventful session was punctuated by just one major incident, which came at around the halfway mark when Ryan Hunter-Reay's car suddenly snapped out in Turn 2.

It skated up the banking and slammed the wall side-on before skidding back down and coming to a rest rear-first against the inside barrier.

Hunter-Reay was checked and swiftly released from the infield medical centre, although the Andretti team faces a scramble to get his car repaired in time for qualifying later on Friday.

PRACTICE RESULTS:

Pos	Driver	Team	Car	Time	Gap	Speed
1	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	Dallara/Chevrolet	24.2307s	-	216.172
2	Will Power	Team Penske	Dallara/Chevrolet	24.2359s	0.0052s	216.126
3	Takuma Sato	AJ Foyt Enterprises	Dallara/Honda	24.2413s	0.0106s	216.078
4	Tony Kanaan	Chip Ganassi Racing	Dallara/Chevrolet	24.2854s	0.0547s	215.685
5	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	Dallara/Chevrolet	24.3273s	0.0966s	215.314
6	Helio Castroneves	Team Penske	Dallara/Chevrolet	24.3317s	0.1010s	215.275
7	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	Dallara/Honda	24.3436s	0.1129s	215.169
8	Tristan Vautier	Dale Coyne Racing	Dallara/Honda	24.3766s	0.1459s	214.878
9	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	Dallara/Honda	24.3787s	0.1480s	214.860
10	Carlos Munoz	Andretti Autosport	Dallara/Honda	24.3993s	0.1686s	214.678
11	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	Dallara/Honda	24.4572s	0.2265s	214.170
12	Charlie Kimball	Chip Ganassi Racing	Dallara/Chevrolet	24.4658s	0.2351s	214.095
13	Sage Karam	Chip Ganassi Racing	Dallara/Chevrolet	24.5348s	0.3041s	213.493
14	James Jakes	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	Dallara/Honda	24.5402s	0.3095s	213.446
15	Sebastien Bourdais	KVSH Racing	Dallara/Chevrolet	24.5482s	0.3175s	213.376
16	Juan Pablo Montoya	Team Penske	Dallara/Chevrolet	24.5532s	0.3225s	213.333
17	Ryan Briscoe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	Dallara/Honda	24.5616s	0.3309s	213.260
18	Pippa Mann	Dale Coyne Racing	Dallara/Honda	24.7037s	0.4730s	212.033
19	Jack Hawksworth	AJ Foyt Enterprises	Dallara/Honda	24.7103s	0.4796s	211.976
20	Stefano Coletti	KV Racing Technology	Dallara/Chevrolet	24.7499s	0.5192s	211.637
21	Gabby Chaves	Bryan Herta Autosport	Dallara/Honda	24.8274s	0.5967s	210.977
22	Ed Carpenter	CFH Racing	Dallara/Chevrolet	24.8581s	0.6274s	210.716
23	Josef Newgarden	CFH Racing	Dallara/Chevrolet	24.8599s	0.6292s	210.701