Rossi tops opening Indianapolis practice

With the track – fully resurfaced and reconfigured for this year's race – constantly drying after early showers, lap time improvements came thick and fast up to and beyond the chequered flag falling.

Rossi ultimately clocked a 1:34.535, edging out Tech 3 rider Bradley Smith by just three hundredths adrift.

Rossi's time was some six seconds faster than Marc Márquez's pace-setting FP1 effort from 12 months ago.

Andrea Iannone had held the top spot as the flag dropped, but Rossi and Smith pushed the Pramac man down.

Tech 3's Pol Espargaró survived a scary wobble to classify fourth, ahead of reigning World Champion Márquez and Jorge Lorenzo, fresh from announcing that he is to remain with Yamaha for at least two more seasons.

Scott Redding, Aleix Espargaró, Andrea Dovizioso and Yonny Hernandez completed the top 10 positions.

Dani Pedrosa made a low key start to the weekend on the second of the factory Hondas, placing 16th.