St. Pete IndyCar: McLaughlin tops FP2, shunts for Grosjean, Palou

Impressively, Kyle Kirkwood, Indy Lights champion now at AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet, was the first driver of the weekend to duck under the 61sec barrier but he was soon joined and eclipsed by Will Power of Team Penske-Chevrolet, then Simon Pagenaud newly installed at Meyer Shank Racing-Honda after seven years at Penske, and then Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet hit the top.

But it was Alexander Rossi of Andretti Autosport-Honda who hit form, his eighth lap putting him second, his ninth lap putting him on top with a 60.3063sec. That was 0.16sec faster than anyone else.

The session had been largely incident-free to this point – a harmless Turn 1 spin for Jimmie Johnson in the Carvana Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda, a trip down the Turn 10 escape road for yesterday’s pacesetter Romain Grosjean in the #28 Andretti Autosport-Honda.

But with just under half an hour to go of the 45-minute session, Jack Harvey turned in a tad too early at Turn 9, clipped the inside wall which spat the #45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda hard into the outside wall on corner exit. That inevitably brought out the red flag.

The session resumed with 20mins to go, but the red emerged again two minutes later. Grosjean arrived fast at Turn 10 as a clump of cars was backing up and dawdling, trying to give each other some clear space for a flying lap. Grosjean drove hard into the #51 Dale Coyne Racing-Honda that he used to drive, now occupied by Takuma Sato and jacked it high in the air. Both cars were too damaged to continue.

At the same time, Johnson spun at Turn 8, lightly kissed concrete with the sidewalls of his tires, and stalled.

Action resumed with little more than 10mins to go, and this was the drivers’ chance to put on the softer, red-sidewalled Firestone alternates.

It was Penske’s sophomore Scott McLaughlin who punched in the first sub-one-minute lap, with a 59.7342sec effort.

Then reigning champion Alex Palou, who had just turned his fastest lap of the session and moved up to seventh, had a nasty-looking shunt at Turn 9. Like Harvey, he had clipped the inside wall, but in this instance, the Ganassi car was sent nearly head-on into the outside wall.

The cars were released again, but no one improved their times, so McLaughlin remained top ahead of last year’s St. Pete winner Colton Herta of Andretti Autosport.

Pagenaud was third ahead of Rossi and Power, with Rinus VeeKay making it five different teams in the top six.

Rookie Kirkwood adapted well to the Firestone reds, knocking half a second off his black-tire time and finishing the session eighth ahead of the Arrow McLaren SP-Chevys.

Qualifying begins at 12.30pm local time, with several expected key players such as Grosjean and Harvey uncertain how their cars handle on the softer tires.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	21	59.734		108.481
2	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	23	1'00.085	0.350	107.847
3	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	17	1'00.085	0.351	107.847
4	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	19	1'00.107	0.373	107.807
5	Will Power	Team Penske	20	1'00.160	0.425	107.713
6	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	14	1'00.210	0.476	107.623
7	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	22	1'00.236	0.502	107.576
8	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	18	1'00.240	0.506	107.569
9	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	19	1'00.333	0.599	107.403
10	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	18	1'00.376	0.642	107.327
11	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	20	1'00.382	0.647	107.317
12	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	14	1'00.386	0.651	107.310
13	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	20	1'00.391	0.656	107.301
14	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	22	1'00.391	0.657	107.299
15	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	20	1'00.439	0.704	107.216
16	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	20	1'00.458	0.724	107.181
17	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD	17	1'00.487	0.753	107.130
18	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	16	1'00.603	0.869	106.924
19	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	12	1'00.754	1.020	106.659
20	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	17	1'00.797	1.062	106.584
21	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	18	1'00.820	1.086	106.543
22	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	19	1'01.328	1.594	105.660
23	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing	12	1'01.359	1.624	105.608
24	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	10	1'01.365	1.630	105.598
25	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	14	1'01.884	2.150	104.711
26	Tatiana Calderon	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	19	1'02.132	2.398	104.293
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