As the opening practice session for this weekend's Honda Indy 200 got underway this mornin, more than half the field took off to complete their installation laps before the KV Racing Technology No. 4 Chevrolet of Stefano Coletti ran off course before finishing his warm up lap. Championship leader Juan Pablo Montoya sat idle in the garage with alternator problems on his No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet. 

Five drivers took hot laps in the openig 15 minutes of practice. Jack Hawksworth topped the charts with a best lap time of 1:08.5 in his A.J. Foyt Enterprises No. 41 Honda, followed by the No. 7 of James Jakes, Coletti, the No. 18 of Rodolfo Gonzalez, and the No. 98 of Gabby Chaves.

With 55 minutes left in the session, the No. 20 CFH Racing Fuzzy's Vodka Chevrolet of Luca Filippi lost power due to a spin and caused the session's first red flag.

Hawksworth kept the top spot for the first half hour of practice before the No. 1 Team Penske Chevrolet of Will Power topped the charts with a time of 1:07.5, as none of the dominant Chip Ganassi Racing cars - going for their 100th win -  have taken any laps yet. 

Halfway through the first practice session, the red flag came out as the No. 22 of Simon Pagenaud ran off course and nearly into the tire barrier. Filippi sat atop the timesheet with a 1:07.3 followed by Power, Marco Andretti, Hawksworth, and Ryan Briscoe in the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports No. 5 Honda rounding out the top-five. 

After the green came back out, Sebastien Bourdais went to the top in his KVSH Racing No. 11 with 30 minutes to go with a lap of 1:06.8. A few minutes later, the No. 10 of Tony Kanaan brought out the third red flag of the session after spinning in Turn 5 while having the fifth fastest lap of 1:07.3.

As the green came back out with 20 minutes remaining, the No. 9 of Scott Dixon jumped to the top as Coletti had his second spin of the session. Bourdais and the No. 14 of Takuma Sato rounded out the top-three while Montoya finally came out of the garage to turn his first laps of the session.

Other than spins from Will Power and Ryan Hunter-Reay, the final minutes of the first practice were fairly clean. As the checkered came out, Sebastien Bourdais sat atop the timesheet with a 1.06.2, followed by Power, Josef Newgardem, Sato, Hawksworth. Dixon, Graham Rahal, Andretti, Carlos Munoz, and Pagenaud rounding out the top-ten. 

After spending most of the session in the garage, championship leader Juan Pablo Montoya finished the session down in 21st..

The second practice session for the Verizon IndyCar Series is scheduled for 3:15 - 4:30pm.

Follow @VAVELIndyCar on Twitter for continued coverage of the Honda Indy 200 from Mid-Ohio this weekend.


Eric Lawrence is a writer for the VAVEL USA Racing section. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheRic5150.

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Eric Lawrence
Self proclaimed musician, audio engineer,and total open wheel racing fanatic! I have a passion for IndyCar, World of Outlaw sprint cars, and Formula 1!