Yesterday’s pacesetter Scott McLaughlin wasted no time in flirting with the 66-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 36mins to go, his nearest challenger became teammate Josef Newgarden, just 0.0053s behind, but Christian Lundgaard and Graham Rahal were an encouraging third and sixth fastest for Rahal Letterman Lanigan.
Marcus Armstrong got into the 1m06s to run third in his third race weekend for Chip Ganassi Racing before being displaced by first his teammate Scott Dixon – still looking for a win here at Barber – and then Alexander Rossi leading the Arrow McLaren charge.
But Lundgaard proved that RLL’s strong showing was no fluke by bouncing back into third, just 0.04s off McLaughlin’s benchmark, while Callum Ilott of Juncos Hollinger Racing jumped into sixth until bumped down by Long Beach winner of Kyle Kirkwood of Andretti Autosport and another Arrow McLaren car, that of Felix Rosenqvist.
Romain Grosjean, who lost most of yesterday’s session when his Honda expired, was able to climb into third spot, but that became fourth when Alex 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.
Dixon reappeared in the top five with less than five minutes to go, 0.33s from teammate 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 a checkered.
|
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 |
