IndyCar GP Indy: Palou tops second practice, RLL shines again

With the entire field working on setups for primary tires, the times were remarkably close in the first 25mins. Felix Rosenqvist, who has taken two poles on the Indy road course, was top for Arrow McLaren with a 1m10.4167s, until with 17 minutes to go he was deposed by Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing, by 0.0343s, who was using all the curbs and some of the grass.

Again Rahal Letterman Lanigan cars looked strong with both Christian Lundgaard and Jack Harvey in the top eight. Also running strong were the other Ganassi cars, with Marcus Armstrong, Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson in the top 10.

Pato O’Ward then jumped to the top with 1m10.2604s in the #5 McLaren, and Armstrong improved to go second, but then Lundgaard grabbed P1 by just 0.0024s on a set of fresh primaries.

With five minutes to go, Palou became the first driver to duck under 70 seconds with a 1m09.9383s, an average speed of 125.545mph. 

That was three-tenths faster than Lundgaard, and No one could match that, despite late improvements from Harvey and Team Penske trio Scott McLaughlin, Josef Newgarden and Will Power.

Helio Castroneves’ Meyer Shank Racing lost an engine, pulling off after eight laps with a smoking brand-new Honda.

Qualifying will begin at 4.00pm local (Eastern) time.

P	Name	FTime	Diff	FL	Laps	FSpeed	Engine	Tire	Team
1	Alex Palou	1:09.9383	1:09.9383	19	21	125.545	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
2	Christian Lundgaard	1:10.2580	0.3197	15	17	124.974	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
3	Pato O'Ward	1:10.2604	0.3221	18	22	124.969	Chevy	P	Arrow McLaren
4	Marcus Armstrong	1:10.3022	0.3639	17	20	124.895	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
5	Jack Harvey	1:10.3038	0.3655	14	15	124.892	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
6	Josef Newgarden	1:10.3174	0.3791	18	18	124.868	Chevy	P	Team Penske
7	Scott McLaughlin	1:10.3395	0.4012	23	23	124.829	Chevy	P	Team Penske
8	Will Power	1:10.3999	0.4616	15	17	124.722	Chevy	P	Team Penske
9	Scott Dixon	1:10.4018	0.4635	18	21	124.718	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
10	Marcus Ericsson	1:10.4026	0.4643	17	20	124.717	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
11	Alexander Rossi	1:10.4075	0.4692	17	20	124.708	Chevy	P	Arrow McLaren
12	Felix Rosenqvist	1:10.4167	0.4784	4	15	124.692	Chevy	P	Arrow McLaren
13	Kyle Kirkwood	1:10.4753	0.5370	12	14	124.588	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport
14	Graham Rahal	1:10.5187	0.5804	17	19	124.512	Honda	P	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
15	Colton Herta	1:10.6510	0.7127	16	18	124.278	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
16	Simon Pagenaud	1:10.6982	0.7599	12	17	124.196	Honda	P	Meyer Shank Racing
17	Callum Ilott	1:10.7046	0.7663	16	19	124.184	Chevy	P	Juncos Hollinger Racing
18	Rinus VeeKay	1:10.7077	0.7694	10	20	124.179	Chevy	P	Ed Carpenter Racing
19	Romain Grosjean	1:10.7678	0.8295	17	18	124.073	Honda	P	Andretti Autosport
20	Conor Daly	1:10.8026	0.8643	16	16	124.012	Chevy	P	Ed Carpenter Racing
21	David Malukas	1:10.8835	0.9452	10	20	123.871	Honda	P	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
22	Devlin DeFrancesco	1:10.9534	1.0151	17	17	123.749	Honda	P	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
23	Sting Ray Robb	1:11.0065	1.0682	10	19	123.656	Honda	P	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
24	Agustin Canapino	1:11.0330	1.0947	17	19	123.610	Chevy	P	Juncos Holling Racing
25	Santino Ferrucci	1:11.1361	1.1978	16	16	123.431	Chevy	P	AJ Foyt Enterprises
26	Benjamin Pedersen	1:11.2574	1.3191	18	20	123.221	Chevy	P	AJ Foyt Enterprises
27	Helio Castroneves	1:11.7210	1.7827	4	7	122.424	Honda	P	Meyer Shank Racing