Hélio Castroneves took pole position, breaking the track record that he had set the previous lap with a time of 37.7538 (194.905 mph).

Behind them, however, the start was chaotic, as Mikhail Aleshin spun in the middle of turn one, triggering a multi-car incident that took out championship leader Sébastien Bourdais, Max Chilton, Marco Andretti, and Graham Rahal.

[3] After a lengthy clean-up, racing resumed on lap 22, where Simon Pagenaud managed to move in front of Hildebrand for fourth place.

Pit stops began shortly after, where Power was able to leapfrog all three of his teammates and take the lead of the race, with Castroneves, Pagenaud, and Newgarden behind.

[3] The order remained largely unchanged for the following stint, though Newgarden, struggling with a broken front wing, lost his fourth position to a hard-charging Hildebrand.

At roughly lap 120, the second cycle of pit stops came, during which Alexander Rossi made contact with the wall and was forced to retire from the race, though there was no caution for this incident.

Shortly after, however, Rossi's teammate Takuma Sato made contact with the turn four wall and came to a stop on the frontstretch, bringing out the caution.