Palou tops second session to sweep Friday testing at The Thermal Club

Palou put down an unyielding lap of 1m39.3373s (111.149 mph) around the 3.067-mile, 17-turn road course to establish the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda to the top of the charts in the second of four tests ahead of this weekend’s $1 Million Challenge.

The second spot went to Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist, who was a massive 0.4429s off of Palou’s pace.

Romain Grosjean, driving the No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet, settled in third, 0.8117s behind.

The fourth and fifth spots were occupied by Rinus VeeKay (Ed Carpenter Racing) and Christian Lundgaard (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing), respectively.

Team Penske’s Will Power and Josef Newgarden ended up sixth and seventh, while Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong was eighth. Andretti Global’s Colton Herta slotted ninth, ahead of the third and final member of the Team Penske contingent, Scott McLaughlin in 10^th.

Each member of the top six held the top spot at one point during the afternoon, with most of the change coming in the final hour.

While track temperatures jumped from 80F to 100F during the opening test session, it jumped to as high as 122F in the afternoon session before falling down to 110F in the final hour.

After logging the most laps in the first session, Chip Ganassi Racing rookie Kyffin Simpson continued the theme by pounding 38 laps in the afternoon. He ended up 18^th when the checkered flag fell on the day, 1.7376s behind.

Other than a few drivers going off-track briefly, there was only one incident that brought out a red flag nearly 45 minutes into the three hours of running after Christian Rasmussen (Ed Carpenter Racing) was stopped in Turn 6. He still managed to log 23 laps, ending up 23^rd.