news: Howard fastest, Alonso fourth again on Indy Day 4

Jay Howard has set the fastest time of this year’s Indianapolis 500 program thus far, while Fernando Alonso finished Practice 4 just 0.2s slower in fourth.

Howard laid down a 39.6924s (226.744mph, 364.909km/h) on his ninth lap of the day in his Schmidt Peterson Honda, a time which stood up for the balance of the six-hour session.

The lap was strongly aided by a tow, the Briton finishing the day 24th in the non-tow rankings.

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Ryan Hunter-Reay had been fastest to that point, likewise with his ninth lap, and the Andretti Autosport Honda driver was otherwise unbeaten for the rest of the day.

Hunter-Reay’s team-mates Marco Andretti and Alonso followed.

The Spaniard gained significantly more experience running in traffic, but also finished the day ninth on the non-tow rankings.

Takuma Sato bagged those honours in his Andretti Honda and was ninth outright.

Will Power finished the day 12th in car #12.

His Team Penske Chevrolet team-mate Josef Newgarden was good enough for fifth fastest despite hitting the wall just over an hour into proceedings.

The rear of car #2 stepped out through Turn 1, but Newgarden was able to extricate himself from the car.

“I banged my foot a little bit, so it’s going to be bruised for the next couple of weeks, but I’ll get through that,” he said.

“I just got called into the pits, so I was coming in and I didn’t want to check up too much for the guys behind me and cause a problem.

“It just seemed to get away from me. Until I get to look at everything, I’m not 100 percent sure what caused it. We were having a really good day.”

Practice 5 starts on Saturday morning at 0200 AEST, while qualifying commences early on Sunday morning AEST.

VIDEO: Newgarden hits the wall

Practice 4: Indianapolis 500

Pos	Driver	C/A/E/T	Time	Diff	Gap	Best lap	Total laps
1	Howard, Jay	D/H/H/F	00:39.6924			9	86
2	Hunter-Reay, Ryan	D/H/H/F	00:39.8537	0.1613	0.1613	9	79
3	Andretti, Marco	D/H/H/F	00:39.8743	0.1819	0.0206	18	77
4	Alonso, Fernando (R)	D/H/H/F	00:39.8902	0.1978	0.0159	74	96
5	Newgarden, Josef	D/C/C/F	00:39.9193	0.2269	0.0291	11	35
6	Karam, Sage	D/C/C/F	00:39.9671	0.2747	0.0478	2	64
7	Kimball, Charlie	D/H/H/F	00:39.9750	0.2826	0.0079	38	91
8	Servia, Oriol	D/H/H/F	00:40.0290	0.3366	0.0540	51	74
9	Sato, Takuma	D/H/H/F	00:40.0408	0.3484	0.0118	99	99
10	Bourdais, Sebastien	D/H/H/F	00:40.0490	0.3566	0.0082	14	40
11	Aleshin, Mikhail	D/H/H/F	00:40.0693	0.3769	0.0203	9	90
12	Power, Will	D/C/C/F	00:40.0779	0.3855	0.0086	28	103
13	Rossi, Alexander	D/H/H/F	00:40.0885	0.3961	0.0106	9	72
14	Montoya, Juan Pablo	D/C/C/F	00:40.0942	0.4018	0.0057	6	50
15	Castroneves, Helio	D/C/C/F	00:40.1057	0.4133	0.0115	6	117
16	Dixon, Scott	D/H/H/F	00:40.1091	0.4167	0.0034	8	87
17	Rahal, Graham	D/H/H/F	00:40.1157	0.4233	0.0066	61	92
18	Jones, Ed (R)	D/H/H/F	00:40.1193	0.4269	0.0036	61	64
19	Munoz, Carlos	D/C/C/F	00:40.1264	0.4340	0.0071	6	71
20	Carpenter, Ed	D/C/C/F	00:40.1695	0.4771	0.0431	5	68
21	Chilton, Max	D/H/H/F	00:40.2175	0.5251	0.0480	50	53
22	Hildebrand, JR	D/C/C/F	00:40.2487	0.5563	0.0312	40	72
23	Pagenaud, Simon	D/C/C/F	00:40.2793	0.5869	0.0306	68	81
24	Kanaan, Tony	D/H/H/F	00:40.3365	0.6441	0.0572	47	58
25	Mann, Pippa	D/H/H/F	00:40.3501	0.6577	0.0136	16	54
26	Hinchcliffe, James	D/H/H/F	00:40.4185	0.7261	0.0684	15	100
27	Daly, Conor	D/C/C/F	00:40.4277	0.7353	0.0092	6	67
28	Veach, Zach (R)	D/C/C/F	00:40.4562	0.7638	0.0285	36	37
29	Harvey, Jack (R)	D/H/H/F	00:40.6727	0.9803	0.2165	80	92
30	Chaves, Gabby	D/C/C/F	00:40.8411	1.1487	0.1684	71	82
31	Pigot, Spencer	D/C/C/F	00:40.8711	1.1787	0.0300	24	73
32	Saavedra, Sebastian	D/C/C/F	00:40.9910	1.2986	0.1199	14	37
33	Lazier, Buddy	D/C/C/F	17:39.6090	16:59.9166	16:58.618	1	1