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David Malsher-Lopez

IndyCar Toronto: Herta tops second practice as Palou and Grosjean crash

The start of the session was delayed by over 30 minutes as the safety crews and Toronto track workers rebuilt the Turn 3 wall and fence and replaced electrical cables, following a heavy shunt in the supporting Porsche Carrera Cup North America qualifying session.

The first casualty of the session was Josef Newgarden, who felt his Chevrolet go into “engine protection mode” so that he had to cruise back to the pits and was done for the session.

Then defending champion Alex Palou tagged the Turn 1 wall on the inside, which sent the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing across the track and into the wall on the outside, so he damaged the front and rear suspension on the left side as well.

Toronto IndyCar debutant David Malukas went to the top of the times with a 1m00.6834s for Dale Coyne Racing with HMD, just ahead of circuit star and defending race winner Simon Pagenaud of Meyer Shank Racing.

Romain Grosjean, another newcomer to the track, slotted his Andretti Autosport into third, as team-mate Colton Herta reached top spot with an initial 1m00.4871s lap, but Grosjean ran long at Turn 1, and while he got back on track, exiting the final turn the rear of his car stepped out and hit the wall hard with its right-rear. Out came the red flag for a second time, as Grosjean limped his crippled car back to the pits.

Romain Grosjean, Andretti Autosport Hondalin DeFrancesco, Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport Honda= (Photo by: Perry Nelson / Motorsport Images)

As the session resumed, Graham Rahal, who excelled yesterday in first practice too, jumped to third in the #15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan, and Felix Rosenqvist became top Chevrolet runner with fourth fastest time for Arrow McLaren SP.

Rahal then improved again, to draw 0.045s of Herta’s top time, before six-time champion and three-time Toronto winner Scott Dixon slotted into that gap to claim second for Chip Ganassi Racing. Dixon then chipped more hundredths off his best time next time by to move to top spot with a 1m00.4547s.

With seven minutes to go, Scott McLaughlin, another Toronto newcomer, produced a 1m00.3389s on his 26th lap of the session to jump to top spot, only for Ericsson to eclipse the Penske driver shortly afterwards by 0.1307s to jump to the top.

Three-time Toronto winner Will Power delivered a lap good enough for second before being pushed to third as Herta laid the final timesheet-topping lap of the session of 1m00.0471s - the first 107mph lap of the weekend.

With just a minute remaining, Takuma Sato struck the wall hard in Turn 6 and had to stop, which effectively ended the session early.

Rookie Christian Lundgaard underlined his progress with a late improvement to fifth, just ahead of Dixon and Rahal.

Malukas’ best effort kept him eighth ahead of Rosenqvist, as yesterday’s pacesetter Rossi rounded out the top 10, but he was held up on his fastest run by a car pulling out of the pits and holding him up exiting Turn 2.

Toronto IndyCar qualifying starts at 2.00pm local time (7pm BST).

IndyCar Toronto - FP2 results

Cla Driver Team Laps Time Gap Mph
1 United States Colton Herta United States Andretti Autosport 27 1'00.0471   107.076
2 Sweden Marcus Ericsson United States Chip Ganassi Racing 21 1'00.2082 0.1611 106.789
3 Australia Will Power United States Team Penske 26 1'00.3322 0.2851 106.570
4 New Zealand Scott McLaughlin United States Team Penske 26 1'00.3389 0.2918 106.558
5 Denmark Christian Lundgaard United States Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 27 1'00.3954 0.3483 106.458
6 New Zealand Scott Dixon United States Chip Ganassi Racing 19 1'00.4547 0.4076 106.354
7 United States Graham Rahal United States Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 28 1'00.5009 0.4538 106.273
8 United States David Malukas United States Dale Coyne Racing 20 1'00.6834 0.6363 105.953
9 Sweden Felix Rosenqvist United States Arrow McLaren SP 29 1'00.6854 0.6383 105.950
10 United States Alexander Rossi United States Andretti Autosport 22 1'00.6924 0.6453 105.937
11 France Simon Pagenaud United States Meyer Shank Racing 29 1'00.7251 0.6780 105.880
12 Mexico Patricio O'Ward United States Arrow McLaren SP 25 1'00.7574 0.7103 105.824
13 Netherlands Rinus van Kalmthout United States Ed Carpenter Racing 29 1'00.7847 0.7376 105.777
14 Japan Takuma Sato United States Dale Coyne Racing 20 1'00.8726 0.8255 105.624
15 United States Conor Daly United States Ed Carpenter Racing 21 1'00.8927 0.8456 105.589
16 United Kingdom Jack Harvey United States Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 28 1'00.9055 0.8584 105.567
17 Canada Devlin DeFrancesco United States Andretti Autosport 27 1'00.9374 0.8903 105.512
18 United Kingdom Callum Ilott United States Juncos Hollinger Racing 26 1'00.9380 0.8909 105.511
19 France Romain Grosjean United States Andretti Autosport 12 1'00.9964 0.9493 105.409
20 Brazil Helio Castroneves United States Meyer Shank Racing 27 1'01.1110 1.0639 105.212
21 United States Kyle Kirkwood United States A.J. Foyt Enterprises 27 1'01.2315 1.1844 105.005
22 United States Jimmie Johnson United States Chip Ganassi Racing 28 1'01.8323 1.7852 103.984
23 Spain Alex Palou United States Chip Ganassi Racing 7 1'01.9120 1.8649 103.851
24 Canada Dalton Kellett United States A.J. Foyt Enterprises 29 1'02.1370 2.0899 103.475
25 United States Josef Newgarden United States Team Penske 1 1'21.9432 21.8961 78.464
 

 

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