Jay Howard was fastest in a crowd and Takuma Sato turned in the quickest no-tow lap during Thursday's practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but Ryan Hunter-Reay looked strong in and out of traffic.

Howard, whose last IndyCar start came in 2011 with the older-style Dallara, made some heads turn by posting a 226.744 mph speed in the SPM Honda on the first day that co-owner Tony Stewart came to the track.

"I'm chaining him to the garage, he's not leaving," joked Howard, who owns a Formula 4 team.

"No, seriously my car feels great, and it's impressive driving for Sam Schmidt] team because he's got a proper plan and he doesn't deviate. We tried a lot of things, ran in the heat, made some changes and everything was good.

"My only problem is the last time I drove an IndyCar it had three pedals and now you shift on the steering wheel, so I've got to learn not to hit the brake and try to shift."

The 2006 Indy Lights champion for Schmidt got in an hour of testing at Gateway recently, but that's the only time he sat in the DW12 before this week.

"It seemed like you could be a bit more aggressive turning in with the old car, whereas this one reacts very similar to a road course car and you use more of the track."

Sato (LEFT), one of the six cars in the Andretti armada, ran 224.7mph all by himself at the track he nearly won at it 2012, and 2014 Indy winner Hunter-Reay turned 225.826 in the 15-car swarm during Happy Hour and 224.236 mph on his lonesome in the Andretti Autosport Honda.

"I had good balance in the two qualifying sims were ran," he said. "It was getting a little hot and heavy out there so I finally got out of that group."

The month's first real impact took place early in the afternoon when Josef Newgarden spun exiting Turn 1 and clouted the wall in his Team Penske Chevy. The Barber winner got out gingerly but was walking OK an hour later, and his car suffered moderate damage.

"I think I lost it, but I want to see the tape," he said.

Fernando Alonso continued to make good progress as he recorded the fourth-fastest lap of the day at 225.619 mph and was ninth on the no-tow chart.

"The car felt quite OK from the very beginning of the morning, but then I think we did improve it during the day, so I'm quite happy," said the two-time world champion of his McLaren-Andretti Honda.

"We worked still a lot on the race situation, keeping other guys out there and running in traffic. I think we found a good balance for traffic. I think tomorrow we will concentrate a little bit more alone on qualifying, but the priority is the race."

Sebastian Bourdais suffered his second engine failure in a week (he lost one at the IndyCar GP) and Honda's fourth in the same period.

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