In cool conditions, and with no alternate-compound tires available in FP2 (they were used in yesterday’s first practice session) Conor Daly held top spot for Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet after 15mins, with a 1min46.5240sec. But then defending race-winner Alex Palou delivered a third lap in his Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda was over a second quicker, a 1min45.4062.
Romain Grosjean, who had his lap on the softer Firestones yesterday ruined by a red flag, showed he had latent pace on the primaries, too, but as he moved up to second, he was still 0.6sec off Palou’s benchmark, and he was swiftly pushed down to third by Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet.
Yesterday’s pacesetter and 2019 Road America dominator Alexander Rossi had sat on pitlane for the first 20mins with a clutch issue. It wasn’t entirely fixed by the time the #27 rolled out for its first laps, because the Andretti Autosport crew had to get Rossi to spin up his tires in first while the car was on the jacks, and then they simply released the jack so he hit the asphalt in a cloud of tire smoke. The tactic worked, the Firestones bit and Rossi was able to head on out.
However, the problem wasn’t solved, and that initial band-aid for leaving pitlane met with disapproval from IndyCar, so the next times Rossi departed his pitbox, he was being pushed by his crew.
With just under 15mins remaining, several drivers took on fresh primaries, and Marcus Ericsson moved up to second with a 1min45.8079 to make it a Ganassi 1-2, but with 10mins remaining, Colton Herta split the pair with a 45.7.
Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden and Will Power then moved into second and third, and Power then stayed out for an extra lap and finally displaced Palou at the top of the table by a mere 0.0213sec.
Rossi’s early patience and subsequent efforts were then rewarded with third… which became fourth when Pato O’Ward delivered the fastest time of the session, a 1min45.2681sec, an average speed of 137.272mph around the 4.048-mile 14-turn track. He told Peacock livestream that the team had done a lot of good work overnight and the car was now ‘in the window’.
Christian Lundgaard of Rahal Letterman Lanigan was fastest of the rookies, in 12th with his final lap, ahead of the two Meyer Shank Racing-Hondas.
Series returnee Simona De Silvestro was 3.2sec off the pace in the Paretta Autosport-Chevy, about 1.8sec off Ed Carpenter Racing pair Conor Daly and Rinus VeeKay, with whom Paretta has a technical partnership.
| Cla | Driver | Team | Laps | Time | Gap | Mph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Patricio O'Ward |  Arrow McLaren SP | 12 | 1'45.2681 | 137.272 | |
| 2 |  Will Power | Team Penske | 14 | 1'45.3849 | 0.1168 | 137.120 |
| 3 |  Alex Palou | Chip Ganassi Racing | 11 | 1'45.4062 | 0.1381 | 137.093 |
| 4 | Alexander Rossi | Andretti Autosport | 10 | 1'45.5576 | 0.2895 | 136.896 |
| 5 | Josef Newgarden | Team Penske | 13 | 1'45.5744 | 0.3063 | 136.874 |
| 6 | Colton Herta | Andretti Autosport | 14 | 1'45.7664 | 0.4983 | 136.626 |
| 7 |  Marcus Ericsson | Chip Ganassi Racing | 12 | 1'45.8079 | 0.5398 | 136.572 |
| 8 |  Romain Grosjean | Andretti Autosport | 15 | 1'46.0022 | 0.7341 | 136.322 |
| 9 |  Scott McLaughlin | Team Penske | 15 | 1'46.0373 | 0.7692 | 136.277 |
| 10 | Scott Dixon | Chip Ganassi Racing | 14 | 1'46.0617 | 0.7936 | 136.245 |
| 11 | Felix Rosenqvist | Arrow McLaren SP | 14 | 1'46.0998 | 0.8317 | 136.196 |
| 12 |  Christian Lundgaard | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 16 | 1'46.1046 | 0.8365 | 136.190 |
| 13 |  Helio Castroneves | Meyer Shank Racing | 11 | 1'46.2389 | 0.9708 | 136.018 |
| 14 | Simon Pagenaud | Meyer Shank Racing | 10 | 1'46.2553 | 0.9872 | 135.997 |
| 15 | David Malukas | Dale Coyne Racing with HMD | 11 | 1'46.2816 | 1.0135 | 135.963 |
| 16 |  Callum Ilott | Juncos Hollinger Racing | 13 | 1'46.4851 | 1.2170 | 135.703 |
| 17 | Conor Daly | Ed Carpenter Racing | 14 | 1'46.5240 | 1.2559 | 135.654 |
| 18 |  Devlin DeFrancesco | Andretti Autosport | 12 | 1'46.5438 | 1.2757 | 135.629 |
| 19 | Graham Rahal | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 15 | 1'46.6307 | 1.3626 | 135.518 |
| 20 |  Rinus van Kalmthout | Ed Carpenter Racing | 10 | 1'46.6619 | 1.3938 | 135.479 |
| 21 | Jack Harvey | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 14 | 1'46.8522 | 1.5841 | 135.237 |
| 22 |  Takuma Sato | Dale Coyne Racing | 13 | 1'46.9109 | 1.6428 | 135.163 |
| 23 | Jimmie Johnson | Chip Ganassi Racing | 14 | 1'47.8402 | 2.5721 | 133.998 |
| 24 | Dalton Kellett | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 15 | 1'47.9272 | 2.6591 | 133.890 |
| 25 | Kyle Kirkwood | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 5 | 1'48.1562 | 2.8881 | 133.607 |
| 26 |  Tatiana Calderon | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 14 | 1'48.1969 | 2.9288 | 133.557 |
| 27 |  Simona de Silvestro | Paretta Autosport | 13 | 1'48.4582 | 3.1901 | 133.235 |
| View full results | ||||||
