Mid-Ohio IndyCar: Herta leads Power in second practice

Devlin DeFrancesco caused a red flag in the opening minutes of the session with an off-course excursion.

Ten drivers had set 68sec laps by the time Alexander Rossi sent his Andretti Autosport-Honda to the top with a 67.8725sec lap, swiftly replaced in P1 by Felix Rosenqvist of Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet.

However, the Swede was then replaced at the top by teammate Pato O’Ward, then Romain Grosjean (Andretti), Will Power (Team Penske-Chevrolet) and Rinus VeeKay (Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet). VeeKay’s best effort, which edged Power by 0.0051sec and O’Ward by 0.0574sec, was a 67.1965sec (120.971mph) around the 2.238-mile course.

With under 30mins to go, the two Kiwis flew into the top five, Scott McLaughlin’s Penske ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda’s Mid-Ohio legend, Scott Dixon, but soon after came the second red flag, caused by an off for Dalton Kellett of AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet.

Then Josef Newgarden, yesterday’s pacesetter and the 2021 Mid-Ohio winner, went fastest with a 67.0614, just ahead of increasingly impressive rookie David Malukas in the Dale Coyne Racing with HMD-Honda.

Colton Herta then put in a 67.0275sec in his Andretti Autosport-Honda, and Will Power had just responded with a slightly slower (by 0.0034sec) lap when he skated off at Turn 4, bringing out the third red flag of the session. The evolution of the track was such that Herta and Power on primaries had set faster times than Newgarden’s best effort on the soft compound Firestone’s in yesterday’s first practice session.

Behind Newgarden and Malukas, defending NTT IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou was fifth ahead of VeeKay, with Pato O’Ward seventh ahead of McLaughlin, Dixon and Rossi.

Championship leader Marcus Ericsson had a wild 360-degree spin on the grass, yet was able to return to the Ganassi #8 pits without obvious damage, but finished the session in 15^th.

Paretta Autosport’s Simona De Silvestro was 24^th, 1.94sec off the ultimate pace, 1.6sec and 1.8sec adrift of Ed Carpenter Racing semi-teammates Conor Daly and VeeKay respectively.

Qualifying begins at 2.45pm local (Eastern) time.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	23	1'07.0275		121.276
2	Will Power	Team Penske	22	1'07.0309	0.0034	121.269
3	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	22	1'07.0614	0.0339	121.214
4	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD	19	1'07.0978	0.0703	121.149
5	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	24	1'07.1521	0.1246	121.051
6	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	21	1'07.1965	0.1690	120.971
7	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	26	1'07.2539	0.2264	120.867
8	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	22	1'07.3353	0.3078	120.721
9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	26	1'07.3811	0.3536	120.639
10	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	25	1'07.3849	0.3574	120.632
11	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	20	1'07.3890	0.3615	120.625
12	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	26	1'07.4062	0.3787	120.594
13	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	20	1'07.4819	0.4544	120.459
14	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	24	1'07.5118	0.4843	120.406
15	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	20	1'07.5211	0.4936	120.389
16	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	24	1'07.6387	0.6112	120.180
17	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	22	1'07.7773	0.7498	119.934
18	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	25	1'07.7894	0.7619	119.913
19	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	23	1'07.8178	0.7903	119.862
20	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	24	1'07.9389	0.9114	119.649
21	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	21	1'08.1605	1.1330	119.260
22	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing	20	1'08.3601	1.3326	118.911
23	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	17	1'08.8449	1.8174	118.074
24	Simona de Silvestro	Paretta Autosport	20	1'08.9685	1.9410	117.863
25	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	22	1'08.9760	1.9485	117.850
26	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	13	1'09.2435	2.2160	117.394
27	Tatiana Calderon	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	20	1'09.2613	2.2338	117.364
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