IndyCar Laguna Seca: Palou leads second practice from Rossi

Colton Herta had worked down to a 1m12.9450s in his Andretti Herta Autosport, when Graham Rahal spun his Rahal Letterman Lanigan exiting the top of the Corkscrew and stalled, causing a red flag.

Juncos Hollinger Racing’s rookie Callum Ilott delivered a 1m12.34s, then a 1m11.9899s to go top ahead of fellow rookies David Malukas and Christian Lundgaard. As in Portland, Ilott was shining at a track where he gained experience last year, and he was over three-tenths of a second clear of his nearest rival at the time.

The first of the Team Penske drivers to set a representative lap was Scott McLaughlin, who set a 1m12.6457s on his first flyer.

On the exit of Turn 9, Pato O’Ward got slightly sideways in his Arrow McLaren SP, but then got irredeemably sideways approaching Turn 10 and skated backward over the gravel and required rescuing.

The session resumed with 24mins remaining, and Romain Grosjean moved his Andretti Autosport-Honda up to second, halving Ilott’s advantage, but with 13 minutes to go, Alexander Rossi shaded Ilott’s time by a mere 0.0086s, and then out came several drivers on fresh rubber and the order started shuffling.

Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing, who topped a test here two weeks ago, claimed top spot with a 1m11.6510s effort – three-tenths quicker than Rossi. While Rossi then improved, so too did Palou, getting down to 1m11.3847s.

Josef Newgarden, Team Penske Chevrolet (Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images)

Colton Herta moved up to third, 0.15s behind team-mate Rossi and now ahead of rookie Rookie of the Year contender Christian Lundgaard of RLL and Simon Pagenaud.

With their final efforts Team Penske's title battlers Will Power and Josef Newgarden moved up to third and fourth.

IndyCar Laguna Seca - FP2 results

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	23	1'11.3847		112.865
2	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	20	1'11.6920	0.3073	112.381
3	Will Power	Team Penske	13	1'11.7183	0.3336	112.340
4	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	19	1'11.7973	0.4126	112.216
5	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	17	1'11.8497	0.4650	112.134
6	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	17	1'11.9192	0.5345	112.026
7	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	22	1'11.9463	0.5616	111.984
8	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	16	1'11.9514	0.5667	111.976
9	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	18	1'11.9899	0.6052	111.916
10	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	21	1'12.1029	0.7182	111.740
11	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	21	1'12.1568	0.7721	111.657
12	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	19	1'12.3024	0.9177	111.432
13	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	20	1'12.3337	0.9490	111.384
14	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	18	1'12.3532	0.9685	111.354
15	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	20	1'12.4744	1.0897	111.168
16	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	23	1'12.5186	1.1339	111.100
17	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	19	1'12.6215	1.2368	110.942
18	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	21	1'12.6457	1.2610	110.905
19	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	17	1'12.6659	1.2812	110.875
20	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	15	1'12.7757	1.3910	110.707
21	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing	22	1'12.8304	1.4457	110.624
22	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	17	1'12.8597	1.4750	110.580
23	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	29	1'12.9890	1.6043	110.384
24	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	21	1'13.2065	1.8218	110.056
25	Simona de Silvestro	Paretta Autosport	21	1'13.3861	2.0014	109.786
26	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	9	1'13.7735	2.3888	109.210
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