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.

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

(C)hassis: D=Dallara | (A)erokit: C=Chevy, H=Honda | (E)ngine: C=Chevy, H=Honda | (T)yre: F=Firestone