The Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda driver lapped the 3.377-mile course in 1min22.6187sec, an average speed of 146.843mph, and just 0.1sec off his record-setting pole position from last year. He was using the harder compound black tires to set his time, and found the reds made little difference.

Closest challenger was the second-placed starter from last year, Team Penske-Chevrolet’s Will Power, who finished the session 0.1sec slower than his fellow Antipodean, but using the reds. This pair eclipsed morning pacesetter Graham Rahal in his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda, who in turn was 0.12sec faster than defending champion Simon Pagenaud (Penske).

Alexander Rossi was half a second off the ultimate pace but proved fastest of the Andretti Autosport runners, as Helio Castroneves was sixth for Penske and Charlie Kimball clocked seventh in the second Ganassi machine.

Ryan Hunter-Reay and Takuma Sato made it three Andretti entries in the top 10, while 10^th belonged to Newgarden in the fourth Penske entry.

Wrestling with a balance problem, Max Chilton crashed his Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda at Turn 5, the exit of the Bus Stop chicane, bringing out the red flag, so IndyCar added an extra five minutes to the session.

Jack Harvey, due to make only his second ever IndyCar start, narrowly edged Schmidt Peterson Motorsports teammate James Hinchcliffe.

Watkins Glen, IndyCar FP2

Cla	#	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	9	Scott Dixon	14	1'22.6187			146.843
2	12	Will Power	19	1'22.7129	0.0942	0.0942	146.676
3	15	Graham Rahal	22	1'22.9716	0.3529	0.2587	146.219
4	1	Simon Pagenaud	19	1'23.0915	0.4728	0.1199	146.008
5	98	Alexander Rossi	21	1'23.1124	0.4937	0.0209	145.971
6	3	Helio Castroneves	16	1'23.2760	0.6573	0.1636	145.684
7	83	Charlie Kimball	22	1'23.3871	0.7684	0.1111	145.490
8	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	20	1'23.4683	0.8496	0.0812	145.349
9	26	Takuma Sato	22	1'23.5152	0.8965	0.0469	145.267
10	2	Josef Newgarden	22	1'23.5842	0.9655	0.0690	145.147
11	10	Tony Kanaan	22	1'23.7672	1.1485	0.1830	144.830
12	18	Sébastien Bourdais	20	1'23.7769	1.1582	0.0097	144.813
13	4	Conor Daly	19	1'23.8158	1.1971	0.0389	144.746
14	14	Carlos Munoz	19	1'23.8752	1.2565	0.0594	144.643
15	20	Spencer Pigot	23	1'23.8922	1.2735	0.0170	144.614
16	27	Marco Andretti	22	1'23.9071	1.2884	0.0149	144.588
17	8	Max Chilton	8	1'24.2403	1.6216	0.3332	144.017
18	7	Jack Harvey	24	1'24.3972	1.7785	0.1569	143.749
19	5	James Hinchcliffe	17	1'24.4012	1.7825	0.0040	143.742
20	21	J.R. Hildebrand	23	1'24.4578	1.8391	0.0566	143.646
21	19	Ed Jones	22	1'24.6153	1.9966	0.1575	143.378