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IndyCar Mid-Ohio: O’Ward fastest from Rahal, Herta in FP2

Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward led the second IndyCar practice session of the weekend at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

The 25-year-old Mexican managed to log 23 laps, with a best of 1m05.9862s around the 2.258-mile, 13-turn natural terrain road course. He was the only driver to run into the under 66s bracket.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal was 0.0577s slower to end up second in the session, with Colton Herta rebounding from an early shunt and put his No. 26 Andretti Global Honda in third (0.1777s behind O’Ward).

David Malukas, making only his second start of the season, slotted fourth in the No. 66 Meyer Shank Racing Honda. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, a six-time winner at Mid-Ohio, was fifth quickest.

Due to the wet conditions that derailed teams from properly using the softer alternates in opening practice on Friday, they were allowed to use their carry-over sets in second practice.

Within five minutes of the start of the session, Palou picked up where he left off and nailed a lap 1m07.1994s to set the benchmark.

Palou was bumped from the top spot by Rinus VeeKay just a few minutes later before he was then knocked down moments later by rookie Linus Lundqvist, Palou’s team-mate, who hit a 1m06.8977s flying lap.

The top spot changed hands with 32 minutes left in the session with another CGR driver, this time Marcus Armstrong, taking down his team-mate after a fast lap of 1m06.7007s.

O’Ward temporarily found the top spot before Marcus Ericsson replaced him with a quick lap of 1m06.5774s, which happened seconds before the red flag came out when Colton Herta went off and into the tire barrier in Turn 12 with just under 26 minutes to go. He was able to return to the pits, albeit without his front wing and nose assembly that was removed by the AMR Safety Team.

A second red flag came out shortly after the session resumed when Kyffin Simpson spun in Turn 11 and stalled, needing assistance to re-fire from the AMR Safety Team after not being able to self-start the new hybrid system.

VeeKay was the first driver to swap to the alternates with 18 minutes to go and was on a quick lap but had to bail out upon finding traffic.

Palou, still on the harder primary compound, managed to climb back to the top of the leaderboard after a quick lap of 1m06.4925s with roughly 12 minutes left.

Shortly after recently-signed Arrow McLaren rookie Nolan Siegel dished out a quick lap on alternates to land fourth on the timing sheets with nine minutes remaining, his team-mate O’Ward put down a quick lap of 1m05.9862s on the softer compound. 

The runner-up spot rotated throughout the final few minutes, with Malukas and Herta holding it before settling on Rahal.

   
1
 - 
3
   
Cla Driver # Laps Time Interval Mph
1 Mexico P. O'Ward Arrow McLaren 5 23

1'05.9862

  123.189
2 United States G. Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 15 27

+0.0577

1'06.0439

0.0577 123.082
3 United States C. Herta Andretti Global with Curb-Agajanian 26 22

+0.1777

1'06.1639

0.1200 122.859
4 United States D. Malukas Meyer Shank Racing 66 24

+0.2214

1'06.2076

0.0437 122.777
5 New Zealand S. Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing 9 25

+0.2327

1'06.2189

0.0113 122.756
6 United States A. Rossi Arrow McLaren 7 24

+0.2655

1'06.2517

0.0328 122.696
7 New Zealand M. Armstrong Chip Ganassi Racing 11 22

+0.3191

1'06.3053

0.0536 122.597
8 New Zealand S. McLaughlin Team Penske 3 27

+0.3216

1'06.3078

0.0025 122.592
9 Denmark C. Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 45 26

+0.3467

1'06.3329

0.0251 122.546
10 Spain A. Palou Chip Ganassi Racing 10 27

+0.5063

1'06.4925

0.1596 122.251
11 Sweden L. Lundqvist Chip Ganassi Racing 8 22

+0.5808

1'06.5670

0.0745 122.115
12 Sweden M. Ericsson Andretti Global 28 25

+0.5912

1'06.5774

0.0104 122.095
13 Australia W. Power Team Penske 12 26

+0.6365

1'06.6227

0.0453 122.012
14
N. Siegel Arrow McLaren
6 19

+0.6421

1'06.6283

0.0056 122.002
15 France R. Grosjean Juncos Hollinger Racing 77 25

+0.6781

1'06.6643

0.0360 121.936
16 United States S. Ferrucci A.J. Foyt Enterprises 14 26

+0.7155

1'06.7017

0.0374 121.868
17 United States K. Simpson Chip Ganassi Racing 4 17

+0.7602

1'06.7464

0.0447 121.786
18 Sweden F. Rosenqvist Meyer Shank Racing 60 22

+0.7853

1'06.7715

0.0251 121.741
19 United States J. Newgarden Team Penske 2 25

+0.7938

1'06.7800

0.0085 121.725
20 Brazil P. Fittipaldi Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 30 28

+0.8515

1'06.8377

0.0577 121.620
21 Netherlands R. van Kalmthout Ed Carpenter Racing 21 23

+0.9480

1'06.9342

0.0965 121.445
22
C. Rasmussen Ed Carpenter Racing
20 22

+1.0731

1'07.0593

0.1251 121.218
23 Argentina A. Canapino Juncos Hollinger Racing 78 24

+1.0983

1'07.0845

0.0252 121.173
24 United Kingdom T. Sowery Dale Coyne Racing 51 27

+1.1829

1'07.1691

0.0846 121.020
25 United Kingdom J. Harvey Dale Coyne Racing 18 27

+1.2644

1'07.2506

0.0815 120.873
26 United States K. Kirkwood Andretti Global 27 21

+1.4222

1'07.4084

0.1578 120.590
27
R. Robb A.J. Foyt Enterprises
41 22

+2.1715

1'08.1577

0.7493 119.265

 

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