IndyCar Long Beach: O’Ward leads Kirkwood, Grosjean in FP2

There was a red flag before the five minute mark in this one-hour/45-minute session when Callum Ilott yumped his Juncos Hollinger Racing entry off the Turn 5 apex curbs and javelined into the tire wall on corner exit. Barely three minutes after the session restarted and Rinus VeeKay pulled a wheelie over the same curbs, and also struck the tires.

TV cameras revealed that overnight an extra slab of curb had been added, and NBC reported that in pit notes regarding track changes, the only thing mentioned was the pit exit blend line that had been changed from yellow to orange.

When action resumed, it was Scott McLaughlin who first flirted with the 67-second barrier, his Chevrolet-powered Team Penske car lapping in 1m07.0182s, and while teammate Josef Newgarden was his initial closest challenger, Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing made it a Kiwi 1-2, his Honda-ppowered car just 0.0775s off the top.

With 20m to go, Pato O’Ward, Friday’s pacesetter, was very close, less than a tenth further back with 22m to go, while Kyle Kirkwood led the Andretti Autosport squad in fourth, then went fastest. However, he was displaced by team-mate Colton Herta, by 0.0775s, who produced a 1m06.6868s, 106.240mph on the 1.968-mile street course.

Felix Rosenqvist got the second Arrow McLaren up to third, before Team Penske’s Will Power slotted ahead, 0.1275 off Herta.

O’Ward then lowered the target to 1m06.5273s. Newgarden and McLaughlin took turns at knocking him off his pedestal, moving up to second and third respectively.

In the closing 10 minutes, drivers started coming out on Firestone’s green sidewalled alternate compound tires, with Dixon hitting P1 with a 1m06.2407s.

However, this was never going to stand, and O’Ward slammed in a 1m05.9982s, which left him just 0.0167s ahead of Kirkwood, who got a nudge around the hairpin by a frustrated Power. The reigning champion had already smacked a wall broadside, and he wasn’t the only Penske driver to make an error in the closing stages as McLaughlin suffered a spin.

That left Grosjean in third ahead of Herta – who was hampered by yellows caused by McLaughlin’s incident – making it three Andretti cars in the top four.

McLaughlin retained fifth ahead of Rosenqvist, while the third Arrow McLaren of Alexander Rossi slithered with brakes locked down the Turn 9 escape road.

Dixon, Ericsson and Alex Palou were 7-8-9 for Ganassi ahead of Newgarden.

Qualifying begins at 12.05pm local (Pacific) time.