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IndyCar Road America: Herta tops wet FP2 after four red flags

The California native carefully navigated the tricky conditions to nail a flying lap of 2m07.3027s around the 4.014-mile, 14-turn road course.

“It got pretty sketchy,” said Herta. “I think we kind of learned what we wanted to learn.”

The gap between Herta and the rest of the field was significant as he held a 1.9470s advantage over Team Penske’s Will Power, who finished up second in the session.

Ed Carpenter Racing rookie Christian Rasmussen was third, 2.2111s behind the top mark.

The session began in wet conditions, with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Christian Lundgaard setting the initial quick time at 2m10.9633s – which was good enough for fourth overall at the end.

Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was fifth, 3.8188s behind Herta.

While the plethora of rooster tails from competitors blanketed the main straightaway in spray, several off-track moments started to take place as the likes of Lundgaard and McLaughlin ventured past the limit.

The first red flag of the session came out with 34 minutes to go after the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda of Alex Palou, the defending event winner here, ended up in the gravel trap in Turn 14.

Only 16 of the 27 drivers had gone out on track to record a time before the stoppage.

Once the red flag was lifted and the session resumed, Herta improved his pace and put down a flying lap of 2m07.4999s lap to extend his advantage over the rest of the field.

Then another red flag came out with 27 minutes to go after Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Pietro Fittipaldi locked up in Turn 12 and got stuck in the gravel trap.

This incident did bring an anxious moment as the AMR Safety Team vehicle pulled out to assist Fittipaldi, with Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi running wide and barely avoiding the truck before continuing. Rossi received a five-minute penalty for failure to yield to safety.

 

The rain started to come down even heavier, with Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden sharing over the radio that he was hydroplaning and opted to return to pit road. Herta also returned to pit road but not before going off in Turn 5.

McLaughlin went back out with 14 minutes left as the rain lightened up some, but not enough to prevent more issues for some competitors.

Kyle Kirkwood caused a third red flag after being stuck in the grass after a spin to the inside of Turn 14 with six minutes to go.

This set up a chance for several drivers to get back into the car and make a late push to improve their time as conditions improved. However, it was short-lived as another red flag came out with less than five minutes to go for Palou once again, who was stopped in Turn 1 with an apparent electrical issue with his car stuck in gear, so it had to be craned away.

There was one last chance for the final minute to be run under the green flag to conclude the session, but the running order remained unchanged.

   
1
 - 
3
   
Cla Driver # Laps Time Interval Mph
1 United States C. Herta Andretti Global with Curb-Agajanian 26 9

2'07.3027

  113.512
2 Australia W. Power Team Penske 12 8

+1.9470

2'09.2497

1.9470 111.802
3
C. Rasmussen Ed Carpenter Racing
20 8

+2.2111

2'09.5138

0.2641 111.574
4 Denmark C. Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 45 3

+3.6606

2'10.9633

1.4495 110.339
5 New Zealand S. McLaughlin Team Penske 3 10

+3.8188

2'11.1215

0.1582 110.206
6 Sweden M. Ericsson Andretti Global 28 6

+4.2952

2'11.5979

0.4764 109.807
7 United States G. Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 15 5

+4.5465

2'11.8492

0.2513 109.598
8 United States A. Rossi Arrow McLaren 7 8

+5.0288

2'12.3315

0.4823 109.198
9 France T. Pourchaire Arrow McLaren 6 8

+5.2061

2'12.5088

0.1773 109.052
10 Netherlands R. van Kalmthout Ed Carpenter Racing 21 4

+6.6799

2'13.9826

1.4738 107.853
11
R. Robb A.J. Foyt Enterprises
41 6

+7.1996

2'14.5023

0.5197 107.436
12 Brazil P. Fittipaldi Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 30 5

+8.5660

2'15.8687

1.3664 106.356
13 France R. Grosjean Juncos Hollinger Racing 77 5

+9.4527

2'16.7554

0.8867 105.666
14 United States K. Simpson Chip Ganassi Racing 4 9

+9.6056

2'16.9083

0.1529 105.548
15 Spain A. Palou Chip Ganassi Racing 10 3

+9.6690

2'16.9717

0.0634 105.499
16 New Zealand M. Armstrong Chip Ganassi Racing 11 7

+10.2570

2'17.5597

0.5880 105.048
17 Sweden L. Lundqvist Chip Ganassi Racing 8 6

+10.9574

2'18.2601

0.7004 104.516
18 Italy L. Ghiotto Dale Coyne Racing 51 5

+11.1617

2'18.4644

0.2043 104.362
19 Sweden F. Rosenqvist Meyer Shank Racing 60 3

+12.4540

2'19.7567

1.2923 103.397
20 United States S. Ferrucci A.J. Foyt Enterprises 14 6

+12.7968

2'20.0995

0.3428 103.144
21 United States K. Kirkwood Andretti Global 27 5

+13.9755

2'21.2782

1.1787 102.283
22 United States J. Newgarden Team Penske 2 5

+15.3812

2'22.6839

1.4057 101.276
23 Brazil H. Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing 66 3

+18.6156

2'25.9183

3.2344 99.031
24
N. Siegel Juncos Hollinger Racing
78 4

+2'52.7574

5'00.0601

2'34.1418 48.158
25 Mexico P. O'Ward Arrow McLaren 5 6

+7'46.6334

9'53.9361

4'53.8760 24.330
26 New Zealand S. Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing 9 4

+4'03.4961

6'10.7988

  38.971
27 United Kingdom J. Harvey Dale Coyne Racing 18 3

+2'40.1264

4'47.4291

  50.275

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