Hinchcliffe Leads Milwaukee First Practice

With a lap of 22.0851 seconds (165.451 MPH), Canada's own James Hinchcliffe was fastest in first practice from the Milwaukee Mile. Hinchcliffe is coming off his best finish of 2014 a fortnight ago at Mid-Ohio where he finished third. Second fastest in the session and top Chevrolet was 2008 Milwaukee winner Ryan Briscoe. The Ganassi driver was 0.0136 seconds behind Hinchcliffe after running a session-low 24 laps. Briscoe has never won at a track multiple times in his IndyCar career and he currently sits eleventh in the Verizon IndyCar Series championship standings, two points ahead of Hinchcliffe.

Three-time Milwaukee winner and winner of the last two visits to Wisconsin Ryan Hunter-Reay was third quickest, 0.0224 seconds behind his Andretti Autosport teammate. Hunter-Reay is current third in the championship standings. Josef Newgarden made it three Hondas in the top five in fourth, just a little over a tenth behind Hinchcliffe. Newgarden finished second a month ago at Iowa, the only other short track on the IndyCar schedule. Tony Kanaan rounded out the top five in first practice, following the two drivers he finished third to at Iowa last month.

The most recent Verizon IndyCar Series winner Scott Dixon was sixth. The New Zealander was 0.0649 seconds behind his teammate. Juan Pablo Montoya was seventh fastest as the 2000 Milwaukee winner was 0.2390 seconds back. Following Montoya was fellow Colombian Carlos Muñoz, who had a battery failure end his practice prematurely. Following Muñoz was fellow rookie, Russian Mikhail Alehsin, who was 0.0095 seconds ahead of his Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Motorsports teammate Simon Pagenaud.

Just missing out on the top ten was the championship leader Will Power in eleventh, trailing Hinchcliffe by 0.2919 seconds. Charlie Kimball was twelfth with his former teammate Graham Rahal in thirteenth. Second in the championship, Hélio Castroneves was fourteenth, just over four-tenths of a second back with Justin Wilson rounding out the top fifteen.

Takuma Sato was sixteenth with Sébastien Bourdais in seventeenth. Marco Andretti was eighteenth, 0.5081 seconds slower than his Canadian teammate. Sebastián Saavedra was nineteenth with fellow Chevrolet driver Ed Carpenter rounding out the top twenty. Rookies Carlos Huertas and Jack Hawksworth rounded out the field in first practice. Huertas ran 53 laps, the most in the session. The field was covered by 0.8058 seconds.

Second practice for the Verizon IndyCar Series will take place at 2:30 p.m. ET with qualifying occurring at 6:00 p.m. ET