St. Pete IndyCar: Herta, McLaughlin top FP2, Dixon shunts

Two-time St. Petersburg winner Josef Newgarden became the first driver of the session to make contact with the wall, bending the rear toe-link of his Team Penske-Chevrolet at the exit of Turn 10.

Meanwhile, the Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda team was looking strong in the early minutes of the session with Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson up top with a 1m01.0009, but 15mins in, it was the Arrow McLaren-Chevrolets of Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist in first and third, O’Ward being the first driver down into the 60sec bracket, with a 1m00.9306s.

The red flag came out five minutes later when Romain Grosjean spun his Andretti Autosport-Honda into the grass on the outside of the final turn.

When action resumed, Rosenqvist had a nasty snap toward the Turn 3 wall that he rescued, but Devlin DeFrancesco of Andretti Autosport was less lucky, making hard contact with the Turn 3 exit wall with both his front and rear left-side wheels.

He was able to limp back to the pits, but with 24mins remaining, Dale Coyne Racing-Honda’s rookie Sting Ray Robb clipped the apex wall of Turn 3 which sent him into the outside wall. Now with little steering, he bounced back across the track to hit the inside wall, too.

Rosenqvist was the first driver to run Firestone’s new alternate tires, now green side-walled to mark the fact that they are constructed with rubber sourced from the guayule shrub. He inevitably jumped to the top, but was swiftly displaced by Romain Grosjean who delivered a 1m00.8047s on the primary compound.

Scott McLaughlin, defending race-winner, displaced Grosjean, but then Andretti’s Kyle Kirkwood strapped on the alternate tires to deliver a 1m00.5701, a mark that Rinus VeeKay further lowered for Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet. His 1m00.4601s, also set on alternates, was the first lap of the weekend to surpass the 107mph barrier.

With under 15 minutes left, Ganassi's Alex Palou sprung into the top three with the softer rubber, but then McLaughlin delivered a 1m00.2511s, and 2021 St. Pete winner Colton Herta shaved 0.1732s from that to go top.

The caveat is that heavy traffic compromised several efforts on alternate tires, including those of Marcus Ericsson and O’Ward, while yesterday’s pacesetter Scott Dixon (Ganassi) half-spinning hard into the tire wall at the exit of Turn 4 interrupted Newgarden’s flyer on ‘greens’.

There was barely enough time for anyone to make a final qualifying simulation when the session resumed, and there were no improvements at the top of the times due to heavy traffic.

Qualifying begins at 2.15pm local (Eastern) time. 

P	Name	FTime	Diff	Laps	FSpeed	Engine	Tire	Team
1	Colton Herta	1:00.0779	1:00.0779	26	107.860	Honda	A	Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
2	Scott McLaughlin	1:00.2511	0.1732	27	107.550	Chevy	A	Team Penske
3	Rinus VeeKay	1:00.4601	0.3822	20	107.178	Chevy	A	Ed Carpenter Racing
4	Kyle Kirkwood	1:00.5294	0.4515	22	107.055	Honda	A	Andretti Autosport
5	Alex Palou	1:00.6960	0.6181	29	106.762	Honda	A	Chip Ganassi Racing
6	Marcus Ericsson	1:00.7003	0.6224	27	106.754	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
7	Romain Grosjean	1:00.7680	0.6901	19	106.635	Honda	A	Andretti Autosport
8	Felix Rosenqvist	1:00.8173	0.7394	18	106.549	Chevy	A	Arrow McLaren
9	Alexander Rossi	1:00.8394	0.7615	23	106.510	Chevy	A	Arrow McLaren
10	Pato O'Ward	1:00.9306	0.8527	21	106.351	Chevy	A	Arrow McLaren
11	David Malukas	1:00.9707	0.8928	25	106.281	Honda	A	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
12	Jack Harvey	1:01.0326	0.9547	26	106.173	Honda	A	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
13	Scott Dixon	1:01.1383	1.0604	15	105.989	Honda	A	Chip Ganassi Racing
14	Christian Lundgaard	1:01.1459	1.0680	22	105.976	Honda	A	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
15	Josef Newgarden	1:01.2205	1.1426	26	105.847	Chevy	A	Team Penske
16	Helio Castroneves	1:01.2377	1.1598	24	105.817	Honda	A	Meyer Shank Racing
17	Conor Daly	1:01.2629	1.1850	26	105.774	Chevy	A	Ed Carpenter Racing
18	Simon Pagenaud	1:01.4110	1.3331	22	105.519	Honda	A	Meyer Shank Racing
19	Will Power	1:01.4284	1.3505	27	105.489	Chevy	A	Team Penske
20	Marcus Armstrong	1:01.4818	1.4039	26	105.397	Honda	P	Chip Ganassi Racing
21	Callum Ilott	1:01.5098	1.4319	22	105.349	Chevy	A	Juncos Hollinger Racing
22	Agustin Canapino	1:01.7063	1.6284	24	105.014	Chevy	A	Juncos Holling Racing
23	Graham Rahal	1:01.8292	1.7513	22	104.805	Honda	A	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
24	Santino Ferrucci	1:01.8862	1.8083	24	104.708	Chevy	P	AJ Foyt Enterprises
25	Benjamin Pedersen	1:02.9862	2.9083	26	102.880	Chevy	A	AJ Foyt Enterprises
26	Sting Ray Robb	1:03.2272	3.1493	9	102.488	Honda	P	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
27	Devlin DeFrancesco	1:04.0365	3.9586	4	101.192	Honda	P	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport