Detroit IndyCar: Rossi tops second practice in between red flags

No cars had set a flying lap by the time the first incident occurred. Yesterday’s pacesetter Kyle Kirkwood was struggling with the brakes on his AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet, so after he let David Malukas’ Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports car by on his outside at Turn 7, he couldn’t slow down sufficiently and so went back down the inside of the bemused Malukas.

The pair made wheel-to-wheel contact and Kirkwood slid head on into the tire barrier, and Malukas went down the escape road.

Romain Grosjean of Andretti Autosport-Honda was the first driver to get into the 1min16s, with a 16.7467sec followed by a 16.3981 with 30mins to go. At that point, it put him 0.666sec ahead of next fastest, Simon Pagenaud in the Meyer Shank Racing-Honda. Behind him was Takuma Sato of Dale Coyne Racing with RWR-Honda, followed by fellow Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson, and two more Andretti Autosport drivers, Colton Herta and Alexander Rossi.

Then Josef Newgarden sprung his Team Penske-Chevy into third, and Rinus VeeKay grabbed sixth for Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevy, just before the red flag fell for Jimmie Johnson spinning as he left the pits.

Once Johnson had been bumpstarted, Pagenaud trimmed his deficit to Grosjean down to 0.31sec, and Pato O’Ward inserted his Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet into third as fastest Chevrolet runner.

Then Dalton Kellett’s Foyt car struck the turn 14 wall hard, bringing out the third red flag of the session. As everyone switched to alternates, Will Power spun his car exiting Turn 11, kept it off the wall but stalled, so out came another red flag.

When the session restarted, Pagenaud and Castroneves created an MSR 1-2, with Pagenaud being first driver into the 1min15s, with a 15.8. Then their semi teammate Alexander Rossi went top with a 1min15.8101sec… at which point Pagenaud suddenly stopped on track, effectively ending the session.

Josef Newgarden got up to third, while Malukas landed Coyne in fifth.

Qualifying will start at 12.35pm local (Eastern) time.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	17	1'15.810		111.595
2	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	16	1'15.880	0.070	111.491
3	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	20	1'15.911	0.101	111.445
4	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	19	1'16.041	0.231	111.255
5	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD	17	1'16.118	0.307	111.143
6	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	23	1'16.255	0.444	110.944
7	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	15	1'16.262	0.452	110.932
8	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	17	1'16.335	0.525	110.827
9	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	23	1'16.384	0.574	110.755
10	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	16	1'16.398	0.588	110.736
11	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing	19	1'16.434	0.624	110.683
12	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	16	1'16.995	1.185	109.877
13	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	17	1'17.103	1.292	109.723
14	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	19	1'17.130	1.320	109.685
15	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	14	1'17.361	1.550	109.357
16	Santino Ferrucci	Juncos Hollinger Racing	17	1'17.372	1.562	109.342
17	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	16	1'17.438	1.628	109.249
18	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	16	1'17.723	1.913	108.848
19	Will Power	Team Penske	18	1'18.003	2.193	108.457
20	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	14	1'18.329	2.518	108.006
21	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	15	1'19.197	3.387	106.822
22	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	19	1'19.202	3.392	106.815
23	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	21	1'19.220	3.410	106.791
24	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	11	1'19.424	3.614	106.517
25	Tatiana Calderon	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	18	1'19.500	3.690	106.415
26	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	0
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