AJ Foyt Racing duo head up second practice

Sato’s best was a 67.2157sec lap of the beautiful undulating road course near Birmingham, Alabama, setting an average of 123.1855mph. That was a mere 0.04sec faster than his teammate, and carried on the momentum of the morning, where the Foyt drivers ran fifth and second respectively.

Hinchcliffe, who started from the front row here two years ago, driving for Andretti Autosport, was only 0.025sec off Hawksworth, driving the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda.

On a track still drying in some of the off-line areas of the track, Will Power came to brief grief in the final three minutes, running off track onto the grass before bouncing back to grab P4 for Team Penske-Chevrolet.

Graham Rahal was strong all session for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, eventually ending with fifth place.

Last year’s Barber winner Josef Newgarden was sixth quick for Ed Carpenter Racing, followed by the current top three in the championship – Simon Pagenaud, Juan Montoya (both Penske) and Chip Ganassi Racing-Chevrolet’s Scott Dixon.

This morning’s pacesetter Sebastien Bourdais fell off the track briefly at Turn 5 in the final couple of minutes but finished the session in 10th. However, the KVSH driver's pace-setting morning time put him P4 overall.

Meanwhile, Andretti Autosport appeared to be struggling again, 2014 Barber winner Ryan Hunter-Reay finishing 11^th with Carlos Munoz, Marco Andretti and Alexander Rossi in 12^th, 15^th and 21^st respectively.