IndyCar Barber: Palou leads Penskes in second practice

Yesterday’s pacesetter McLaughlin wasted no time in flirting with the 1m06-second barrier, getting down to a 1m07.0036s on his third lap and then broke through it with a 1m06.7282s on his fifth lap.
With 36 minutes to go, his nearest challenger became team-mate Newgarden, just 0.0053s behind, but Christian Lundgaard and Graham Rahal were an encouraging third and sixth for Rahal Letterman Lanigan.

Lundgaard proved that RLL’s strong showing was no fluke by bouncing back into third as the times tumbled, just 0.04s off McLaughlin’s benchmark, while Callum Ilott of Juncos Hollinger Racing jumped into sixth until he was bumped down by Long Beach winner of Kyle Kirkwood of Andretti Autosport and another Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist.

Romain Grosjean, who lost most of yesterday’s session when his Honda expired, was able to climb to third spot, but that became fourth when Palou went fastest of all with a 1m06.6568s with 17 minutes to go, and then lowered the bar to 1m06.2781s – 0.45s ahead of McLaughlin – an average speed of 124.928mph.

Pato O’Ward got his McLaren into seventh, ahead of an impressive showing by Devlin DeFrancesco of Andretti, while his teammate Colton Herta made a great save at Turn 14 to pop into fifth. He trimmed his time further to scramble into second – but still four tenths away from Palou’s benchmark.

Newgarden and McLaughlin improved with less than a dozen minutes left to go 0.23s and 0.26s respectively behind Palou.

Josef Newgarden, Team Penske Chevrolet Romain Grosjean, Andretti Autosport Honda (Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images)

Dixon reappeared in the top five with less than five minutes to go, 0.33s from team-mate Palou, but any further chance of improvements were curtailed by Helio Castroneves spinning his Meyer Shank Racing entry on the exit of Turn 9. That caused a red flag which became the chequered flag to end the session prematurely.

IndyCar Barber - FP2 results

P	Name	FTime	Diff	FL	Laps	FSpeed	Engine	Tire	Team
1	Alex Palou	1:06.2781	1:06.2781	16	20	124.928	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
2	Josef Newgarden	1:06.5133	0.2352	14	19	124.486	Chevy	P	Team Penske
3	Scott McLaughlin	1:06.5386	0.2605	14	19	124.439	Chevy	P	Team Penske
4	Scott Dixon	1:06.6090	0.3309	19	20	124.308	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
5	Colton Herta	1:06.6788	0.4007	16	20	124.177	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
6	Romain Grosjean	1:06.7455	0.4674	14	23	124.053	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport
7	Christian Lundgaard	1:06.7711	0.4930	8	18	124.006	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
8	Alexander Rossi	1:06.7808	0.5027	9	20	123.988	Chevy	P	Arrow McLaren
9	Pato O'Ward	1:06.8323	0.5542	14	21	123.892	Chevy	P	Arrow McLaren
10	Marcus Ericsson	1:06.8654	0.5873	14	21	123.831	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
11	Devlin DeFrancesco	1:06.8754	0.5973	14	20	123.812	Honda	P	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
12	Kyle Kirkwood	1:06.9333	0.6552	10	22	123.705	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport
13	Felix Rosenqvist	1:06.9628	0.6847	9	19	123.651	Chevy	P	Arrow McLaren
14	Callum Ilott	1:06.9705	0.6924	9	22	123.637	Chevy	P	Juncos Hollinger Racing
15	Marcus Armstrong	1:06.9972	0.7191	6	23	123.587	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
16	Graham Rahal	1:07.0372	0.7591	20	23	123.514	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
17	Will Power	1:07.0377	0.7596	16	22	123.513	Chevy	P	Team Penske
18	David Malukas	1:07.1437	0.8656	8	20	123.318	Honda	P	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
19	Simon Pagenaud	1:07.1458	0.8677	9	23	123.314	Honda	P	Meyer Shank Racing
20	Rinus VeeKay	1:07.1799	0.9018	12	19	123.251	Chevy	P	Ed Carpenter Racing
21	Jack Harvey	1:07.2494	0.9713	7	21	123.124	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
22	Helio Castroneves	1:07.3324	1.0543	9	18	122.972	Honda	P	Meyer Shank Racing
23	Conor Daly	1:07.3750	1.0969	15	21	122.894	Chevy	P	Ed Carpenter Racing
24	Sting Ray Robb	1:07.5094	1.2313	21	22	122.650	Honda	P	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
25	Santino Ferrucci	1:07.5188	1.2407	7	15	122.633	Chevy	P	AJ Foyt Enterprises
26	Benjamin Pedersen	1:07.8030	1.5249	21	22	122.118	Chevy	P	AJ Foyt Enterprises
27	Agustin Canapino	1:07.8443	1.5662	22	22	122.044	Chevy	P	Juncos Holling Racing