Dixon mirrored his teammate's sentiments.

“Practice wasn’t so great," said the Kiwi. "We had a couple of issues with the car not starting and some other mechanical things that just kind of happened. Not the start we wanted to have for the Target team this weekend but we’ll work on getting it right for qualifying tomorrow.”

The big talk in the paddock on Friday was the gap between Chevy and Honda, and for the day's fastest driver, it wasn't a complete surprise.

"It seems that way right now," said Power of the extra ponies the Chevrolets appear to have. "For me, it's always good to have good competition. We don't want a massive discrepancy, but Chevy worked hard over winter."

Other than one driver lightly kissing the wall with a tire, Friday went off without incident or engine failure--a big change from Friday at St. Pete a year ago.

Rank, Car, Driver Name, Lap Time
1 12 Power, Will D/C/F 01:01.4467
2 1 Hunter-Reay, Ryan D/C/F 01:01.6252
3 78 de Silvestro, Simona D/C/F 01:01.6895
4 22 Servia, Oriol D/C/F 01:01.7650
5 14 Sato, Takuma D/H/F 01:01.7703
6 3 Castroneves, Helio D/C/F 01:01.7853
7 11 Kanaan, Tony D/C/F 01:01.8087
8 27 Hinchcliffe, James D/C/F 01:02.0039
9 55 Vautier, Tristan (R) D/H/F 01:02.0459
10 25 Andretti, Marco D/C/F 01:02.0877
11 16 Jakes, James D/H/F 01:02.1030
12 77 Pagenaud, Simon D/H/F 01:02.1134
13 83 Kimball, Charlie D/H/F 01:02.1962
14 15 Rahal, Graham D/H/F 01:02.3596
15 5 Viso, EJ D/C/F 01:02.3622
16 19 Wilson, Justin D/H/F 01:02.3833
17 10 Franchitti, Dario D/H/F 01:02.4086
18 7 Bourdais, Sebastien D/C/F 01:02.4166
19 9 Dixon, Scott D/H/F 01:02.5031
20 98 Tagliani, Alex D/H/F 01:02.5098
21 67 Newgarden, Josef D/H/F 01:02.5305
22 6 Saavedra, Sebastian D/C/F 01:02.5581
23 4 Hildebrand, JR D/C/F 01:02.9057
24 20 Carpenter, Ed D/C/F 01:03.1420
25 18 Beatriz, Ana D/H/F 01:03.9670

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, covering IndyCar and sports cars. Now in his 27th year in the sport, Pruett was an open-wheel mechanic, engineer and manager before joining SPEED. He also contributes to RACER, Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett.