IndyCar Portland: Power leads Penske top three sweep of second practice

All three Penske drivers ducked under the FP1 benchmark set by Newgarden during a session blighted by several red flags, including an 80-minute delay for a fallen trackside screen, but the best non-Penske entry in FP2 couldn't match the double champion's 58.576s Friday best.

Colton Herta came closest to breaking the stranglehold for Andretti Autosport, with Rahal Letterman-Lanigan Racing team-mates Christian Lundgaard and Graham Rahal completing the top six. 

McLaughlin was the first driver to crack the 59-second barrier around the 1.964-mile road course with a 58.938s effort, before Newgarden's closest challenger on Friday, rookie David Malukas of Dale Coyne Racing with HMD-Honda, grabbed top spot with a 58.864s.

Power, the winner at Portland in 2019, then deposed Malukas - who would eventually tumble back to 11th - with a 58.394s that held to the end of the session before McLaughlin slashed Power’s advantage to less than one tenth of a second.

Newgarden, who will serve a six-place grid penalty from his qualifying position after an engine change, re-emerged with 12 minutes to go to move up to fourth. His time promptly beaten by 2019 Portland poleman Herta, before Newgarden responded with a final flyer that put him to a mere 0.013s adrift of team-mate Power.

Scott Dixon moved up to fifth with four minutes to go before outbraking himself for Turn 1, slotting between two advertising hoardings in the run-off.

Colton Herta was the best non-Penske driver in fourth (Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images)

That allowed rookie Lundgaard and Rahal to move ahead of him in the timesheets, although he still ended the session ahead of Alexander Rossi, Callum Ilott (Juncos-Holinger) and Pato O'Ward (Arrow McLaren SP) - the Mexican having caused one of the red flag periods in FP1 with a Turn 5 spin.

Dixon’s team-mates and fellow title contenders Alex Palou and Marcus Ericsson finished the session 13th and 15th respectively.

After off-track incidents in FP1 that also caused red flags, 2018 Portland winner Takuma Sato and Helio Castroneves ended FP2 in 22nd and 23rd positions.

Qualifying begins at 12.05pm local (Pacific) time.

IndyCar Portland FP2 Results

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Will Power	Team Penske	58.3946
2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	58.4083	0.0137
3	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	58.4910	0.0964
4	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	58.7201	0.3255
5	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	58.7463	0.3517
6	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	58.7479	0.3533
7	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	58.7696	0.3750
8	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	58.8380	0.4434
9	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	58.8439	0.4493
10	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	58.8511	0.4565
11	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	58.8642	0.4696
12	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	58.8829	0.4883
13	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	58.9023	0.5077
14	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	58.9253	0.5307
15	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	59.0013	0.6067
16	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	59.0320	0.6374
17	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	59.0427	0.6481
18	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	59.0467	0.6521
19	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	59.0857	0.6911
20	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	59.1327	0.7381
21	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	59.1924	0.7978
22	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	59.3163	0.9217
23	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing	59.3488	0.9542
24	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	59.8229	1.4283
25	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'00.0258	1.6312
View full results

IndyCar Portland FP1 Results

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	58.5769
2	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	58.7024	0.1255
3	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	58.7156	0.1387
4	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	58.7639	0.1870
5	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	58.8246	0.2477
6	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	58.8458	0.2689
7	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	58.9582	0.3813
8	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	58.9896	0.4127
9	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	58.9988	0.4219
10	Will Power	Team Penske	59.0287	0.4518
11	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	59.0325	0.4556
12	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	59.0656	0.4887
13	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	59.1067	0.5298
14	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	59.2422	0.6653
15	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	59.2730	0.6961
16	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	59.2860	0.7091
17	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	59.3141	0.7372
18	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	59.3386	0.7617
19	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	59.3561	0.7792
20	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	59.4217	0.8448
21	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	59.5997	1.0228
22	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	59.6261	1.0492
23	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'00.0175	1.4406
24	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'00.2741	1.6972
25	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing	1'00.5316	1.9547
View full results