MADISON, Ill — A familiar name was at the top of the speed charts during Saturday’s rain delayed NTT INDYCAR SERIES practice at the World Wide Technology Raceway. Three-time defending Bommarito Automotive Group 500 winner Josef Newgarden was P1 as the lone driver to eclipse the 180 mph barrier too.

The Tennessee native circled the 1.25-mile track with a lap of 180.040 mph in his No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet.

“Yeah, it was a good start, I guess,” Newgarden said on Saturday night. “I wasn’t super, super comfy, but I can’t complain. I was just happy we get a session in, right? I think earlier today it looked like we weren’t going to run at all, looking at the weather. Thankfully we got a little break. We were able to get some preparation, at least a feeling of what the car is doing. Even the High-Line stuff was certainly useful.

“Going to try to put that to use tonight and make sure we come up with a good game plan tomorrow. Like I said, I don’t think we’re exactly where we need to be. I think we have information to make it better on the PPG car. I think Team Chevy is going to be exactly where we want to be tomorrow.”

His Bus Bro, Scott McLaughlin, was P2 in his No. 3 Dallara-Chevrolet. McLaughlin circled the track with a lap of 179.353 mph.

He had a hairy moment late in the hour-long session when he spun in the infield grass exiting pit lane in Turn 1. McLaughlin admitted that he was pushing hard on the Firestone alternate tire and lost control.

As a result, his teammate, Will Power, went high in the corner to avoid and got into the outside SAFER barrier in Turn 2.

When he slid off the wall, Marcus Ericsson had no where to go but slam into Power’s out of control car.

“I was some dumbass down on the apron spinning and unfortunately I had to go up and got into wall,” Power said. “Just destroyed my car, got hit. I’m really just pissed off.”

Power said he they had no other option but to rebuild his No. 12 Dallara-Chevrolet overnight but it could compromise performance on Sunday.

Power was P4 (178.703 mph) in the session too.

McLaughlin took the blame.

“It was my own fault,” he said. “Massive apologizes to Marcus (Ericsson) the No. 8 crew and the No. 12 crew of Will. It was pushing on the out lap on my brand-new set of red tires and I cut the inside just a little bit coming off the apron. It must still be a little bit wet or something. It was very scary. I hard my spotter saying car coming into 1, so I just tried to lock it down as best I could.

“I hate to see what happened especially to a teammate but not only that, to competitors. It was a really dangerous situation. Two others paid for it and I feel terrible to be honest.”

Takuma Sato also had a moment with about 10 minutes remaining when he slid into the Turn 4 wall. Luckily, it was just a scrape. He was P3 (179.206 mph) in the session.

Arrow McLaren Racing teammates of Felix Rosenqvist (178.518 mph) and Alexander Rossi (178.310 mph) rounded out the fast six.

Rossi was the first driver to slap on the new set of alternate tires that will debut this weekend on the oval. As far as how much of an impact that they’ll have on Sunday’s race, it’s still up in the air. Some drivers say it will make a difference. Some say otherwise.

“They didn’t seem wildly different,” Newgarden said. “That’s my intuition. Hard to say until we do it for real. We’re all going to find out together in the race.

“But I think off the limited amount of data we have, I don’t know that there’s going to be a big difference between them. With that, it’s not going to give a lot of preference I think is the answer.”

Newgarden said that the tire will be a variable though in the race, but it’s hard to say exactly how much of one that it’s going to add into the mix.

“Just based off tonight, I don’t know that it’s going to be a huge difference maker,” he continued.

“I think you got to stay open to it and make sure you’re ready for it to be a bigger factor than maybe you would realize.

“I think fuel mileage is always a big deal here. If you get into the event if there’s people on mixed strategies, there’s going to create a lot of racing opportunity. If people utilize the second lane like last year, that creates a lot of racing opportunity, too. We’ll have to see if that takes place.”

Conor Daly felt otherwise.

“I would say thankfully it wasn’t too big of a surprise,” he said. “For me, I was like, Okay, not terrifying. It’s not all of a sudden you went out and had a ton of front grip and the thing was super loose.

“I saw a few other drivers, you might miss an apex here or there to try to figure out the entry security compared to how much grip it’s got at the center. For me, there was definitely a noticeable balance change and a noticeable wear. I guess that’s the goal.

“I prefer the primary tires, I tell you that. But that’s what’s supposed to make it exciting.”

As far as how much translated over to Sunday, it’s hard telling. This session was run at night under the lights to where the race on Sunday will be under the sun.

The series will qualify at 10 a.m. locally in the morning before running the 15th of 17 race of the season on Sunday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. ET.