Both Power and team-mate McLaughlin got away with scrapes of the wall in their Team Penske entries, with the pace-setting Chevrolet trio covered by 0.1384s at the conclusion of the multi-part session.

Felix Rosenqvist claimed fourth in his #60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda at 0.1726s off the pace set by McLaren’s O’Ward, with series leader Josef Newgarden making for all three Penske cars in the top five.

Friday’s sole practice session began with an all-in, 45-minute segment before the field was split in two for 10 minutes of track time each.

O’Ward (#5 Chevrolet) topped Group 1 with a 1:06.6874s set on a set of green, alternate tyres, while Group 2 was dominated by Penske.

McLaughlin held sway on a 1:06.8258s in the #3 Chevrolet before Power closed to within 0.0169s of his team-mate, then wheeled Car #12 to a 1:06.7811s in the final moments.

Newgarden’s 1:06.8976s left him third in the group in fifth overall, 0.0376s behind Rosenqvist.

Rounding out the top 10 were Christian Lundgaard (#45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Chevrolet), Alexander Rossi (#7 McLaren Chevrolet), Kyle Kirkwood (#27 Andretti Global Honda), rookie Christian Rasmussen (#20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet), and Agustin Canapino (#78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet).

Colton Herta (#26 Andretti Global w/ Curb-Agajanian Honda) was 11th all-told with the 1:07.4217s he set on primary tyres in the all-in segment of the session, when he duelled with Power for top spot, with Alex Palou (#10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) 13th.

There were two red flags during proceedings, both caused when Ganassi rookie Kyffin Simpson ran the #4 Honda long and ended up stranded in run-off areas, the latter incident occurring near the end of Group 2 action.

Practice 2 starts on Saturday at 11:25 ET/Sunday at 01:25 AEST and then Qualifying from 14:25 ET/04:25 AEST.

Results: Practice 1