For one day, Josef Newgarden did his best Danny Sullivan imitation in spinning and winning – the difference of course, was this was merely a Wednesday practice day and all Newgarden earned was $5,000 for his Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing team as fastest of the day.

The 21-year-old rookie ended the day fastest for third time this month, this time with a tow-assisted best lap of 222.785. His session ended early, though, with the first spin of the month exiting Turn 4.

While Newgarden avoided contact with the outside wall, he spun several times to the inside and made only slight contact with his left front suspension and nose on the car. The car was far from severely damaged.

“You don't get many lucky breaks around this place, and I just got one,” he said. “It got around from me. We're trying to figure out the car around this place, but we'll be fine.”

A trio of Andretti Autosport Chevrolets – Marco Andretti, Ryan Hunter-Reay and James Hinchcliffe – finished next up with Dario Franchitti ending the day in the top five for the first time this month.

Fifteen cars topped the 220mph threshold. Rubens Barrichello ran 114 laps as he continues his learning and understanding of how to drive IMS (ABOVE); the cars which were barely on track were the three Team Penske cars. Helio Castroneves (15), Will Power (11) and Ryan Briscoe (six) ran a combined 32 laps between them, and none ended higher than 23rd on the day.

Neither Jean Alesi nor Simona de Silvestro was able to exceed 206mph in their Lotuses on Wednesday, and Alesi expressed concern over the growing gap between the third manufacturer to the Chevrolets and Hondas.

“Right now, I feel very unsafe, being quite slow in the middle of the track,” Alesi said. “So I am quite concerned for my fellow drivers, if we are not able to get the speed that we need. I am flat out and I have reached 205 as the maximum that I can see. So it is not a comfortable position right now.” 

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                      Speed
1.   Josef Newgarden      Fisher DW12-Honda             222.785
2.   Marco Andretti       Andretti DW12-Chevrolet       222.108
3.   Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti DW12-Chevrolet       221.763
4.   James Hinchcliffe    Andretti DW12-Chevrolet       221.638
5.   Dario Franchitti     Ganassi DW12-Honda            221.623
6.   Justin Wilson        Coyne DW12-Honda              221.420
7.   Bryan Clauson        Fisher DW12-Honda             221.031
8.   Charlie Kimball      Ganassi DW12-Honda            220.911
9.   Takuma Sato          Rahal DW12-Honda              220.856
10.  Sebastian Saavedra   Andretti DW12-Chevrolet       220.802
11.  JR Hildebrand        Panther DW12-Chevrolet        220.718
12.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi DW12-Honda            220.616
13.  Tony Kanaan          KV DW12-Chevrolet             220.305
14.  Graham Rahal         Ganassi DW12-Honda            220.238
15.  Alex Tagliani        BHA DW12-Honda                220.060
16.  Wade Cunningham      Foyt DW12-Honda               219.946
17.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt DW12-Honda            219.802
18.  Ana Beatriz          Andretti DW12-Chevrolet       219.761
19.  Townsend Bell        Schmidt DW12-Honda            219.724
20.  Michel Jourdain Jr.  Rahal DW12-Honda              219.280
21.  Oriol Servia         Panther/DRR DW12-Chevrolet    219.021
22.  Ed Carpenter         Carpenter DW12-Chevrolet      218.921
23.  Helio Castroneves    Penske DW12-Chevrolet         217.705
24.  Will Power           Penske DW12-Chevrolet         217.604
25.  Mike Conway          Foyt DW12-Honda               217.232
26.  Rubens Barrichello   KV DW12-Chevrolet             216.741
27.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske DW12-Chevrolet         216.255
28.  EJ Viso              KV DW12-Chevrolet             215.512
29.  Jean Alesi           Fan Force DW12-Lotus          205.389
30.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM DW12-Lotus                205.009