Portland IndyCar: Power leads Penske-Chevy 1-2-3 in FP2

Team Penske-Chevrolet’s Scott McLaughlin was the first driver to crack the 59sec barrier around the 1.964-mile road course in Portland, OR., with a 58.9384sec effort, but rookie David Malukas of Dale Coyne Racing with HMD-Honda, who finished yesterday’s practice in second, grabbed top spot with a 58.8642sec.

Then Josef Newgarden slotted between the pair of them in his Penske, and Will Power moved up to fourth, but still only 0.1104 off P1.

Conor Daly and Rinus VeeKay showed a reassuring turn of speed to go fifth and sixth fastest for Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet, and Graham Rahal shaded them both in his Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda. Power moved to the top with his 13^th and 14^th laps to move 0.24sec clear of McLaughlin who also leapfrogged Malukas. Power’s new benchmark was 58.3946sec, a 121.080mph lap.

McLaughlin then slashed Power’s advantage to less than one tenth of a second.

Romain Grosjean, whose transmission woes yesterday meant he was unable to complete a run on Firestone’s softer alternate compound tires, was the first Andretti Autosport-Honda driver to crack the top five, although he was still 0.4883 behind Power, and was then edged by teammate Alexander Rossi. In fact, Rossi – who started and finished second here in 2021 – went on to move up to third, but still 0.44sec from P1.

Newgarden re-emerged with 12mins to go to move up to fourth, but more startling was Callum Ilott – at the track on which he made his IndyCar debut last year – moving the Juncos Hollinger Racing-Chevy up to fifth.

With seven minutes left, Colton Herta – 2019 Portland polesitter – moved up to third, but was relegated to fourth when Newgarden’s final flyer moved him to a mere 0.0137sec adrift of teammate Power.

With just four minutes to go, Scott Dixon moved up to fifth, before outbraking himself for Turn 1, slotting between two advertising hoardings in the run-off, wending his way through the tortuous chicanery and rejoining the track.

That allowed rookie Christian Lundgaard and senior teammate Graham Rahal to move into fifth and sixth.

Dixon’s teammates and fellow title contenders Alex Palou and Marcus Ericsson finished the session 13^th and 15^th, while Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet’s Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist were only 10^th and 21^st respectively.

Qualifying begins at 12.05pm local (Pacific) time.

P	Name	FTime	Diff	FL	Laps	FSpeed	Engine	Team
1	Will Power	58.3946	-	14	27	121.080	Chevy	Team Penske
2	Josef Newgarden	58.4083	0.0137	24	27	121.051	Chevy	Team Penske
3	Scott McLaughlin	58.4910	0.0964	17	30	120.880	Chevy	Team Penske
4	Colton Herta	58.7201	0.3255	17	18	120.409	Honda	Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
5	Christian Lundgaard	58.7463	0.3517	23	24	120.355	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
6	Graham Rahal	58.7479	0.3533	29	29	120.352	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
7	Scott Dixon	58.7696	0.3750	20	23	120.307	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
8	Alexander Rossi	58.8380	0.4434	18	25	120.167	Honda	Andretti Autosport
9	Callum Ilott	58.8439	0.4493	19	26	120.155	Chevy	Juncos Hollinger Racing
10	Pato O'Ward	58.8511	0.4565	20	23	120.140	Chevy	Arrow McLaren SP
11	David Malukas	58.8642	0.4696	5	21	120.114	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
12	Romain Grosjean	58.8829	0.4883	17	25	120.076	Honda	Andretti Autosport
13	Alex Palou	58.9023	0.5077	20	27	120.036	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
14	Kyle Kirkwood	58.9253	0.5307	23	27	119.989	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises
15	Marcus Ericsson	59.0013	0.6067	24	25	119.835	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
16	Simon Pagenaud	59.0320	0.6374	15	26	119.772	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
17	Devlin DeFrancesco	59.0427	0.6481	16	24	119.751	Honda	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
18	Jack Harvey	59.0467	0.6521	23	24	119.743	Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
19	Conor Daly	59.0857	0.6911	11	20	119.663	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
20	Rinus VeeKay	59.1327	0.7381	22	24	119.568	Chevy	Ed Carpenter Racing
21	Felix Rosenqvist	59.1924	0.7978	17	22	119.448	Chevy	Arrow McLaren SP
22	Helio Castroneves	59.3163	0.9217	21	25	119.198	Honda	Meyer Shank Racing
23	Takuma Sato	59.3488	0.9542	27	29	119.133	Honda	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
24	Jimmie Johnson	59.8229	1.4283	26	26	118.189	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
25	Dalton Kellett	1:00.0258	1.6312	23	28	117.789	Chevy	AJ Foyt Enterprises