Practice report
IndyCar Laguna Seca
Laguna Seca IndyCar: Palou leads second practice
Alex Palou set the pace in second practice for IndyCar's finale, the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, ahead of the outgoing champion’s final attempt to score a win in 2022.
David Malsher-Lopez
Edited: Sep 10, 2022, 7:10 PM
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Colton Herta had worked down to a 72.9450sec in his Andretti Herta Autosport-Honda, when Graham Rahal spun his Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda exiting the top of the Corkscrew and stalled, causing a red flag.
Juncos Hollinger Racing’s rookie Callum Ilott delivered a 72.34, then a 71.9899sec to go top ahead of fellow rookies David Malukas and Christian Lundgaard. As in Portland, Ilott was shining at a track where he gained experience last year, and he was over three-tenths of a second clear of his nearest rival at the time.
The first of the Team Penske-Chevrolet drivers to set a representative lap was Scott McLaughlin, who set a 72.6457 on his first flyer.
On the exit of Turn 9, Pato O’Ward got slightly sideways in his Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet, but then got irredeemably sideways approaching Turn 10 and skated backward over the gravel and required rescuing.
The session resumed with 24mins remaining, and Romain Grosjean moved his Andretti Autosport-Honda up to second, halving Ilott’s advantage, but the changes weren’t coming quickly as drivers were doing long runs. Scott McLaughlin did a 10-lap run on his primaries and saw only one-second fall-off from first lap to last, but that low degradation was aided by the cool temperatures – 68degF ambient and 82degF track temp.
With 13mins to go, Alexander Rossi shaded Ilott’s time by a mere 0.0086sec, and then out came several drivers on fresh rubber and the order started shuffling. Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda, who topped a test here two weeks ago, claimed top spot with a 71.6510sec effort – three-tenths quicker than Rossi. While Rossi then improved, so too did Palou, getting down to 71.3847s, a 112.865mph average.
Colton Herta moved up to third, 0.15sec behind teammate Rossi and now ahead of rookie Rookie of the Year contender Christian Lundgaard of RLL and Simon Pagenaud’s Meyer Shank Racing-Honda.
On a set of fresh primaries, Scott Dixon moved into sixth, but 0.5866sec off pace-setting teammate Palou, then trimmed that deficit to 0.5345 and moved up to fourth.
However, with their final efforts Team Penske-Chevrolet’s title battlers Will Power and Josef Newgarden moved up to third and fourth.
Paretta Autosport-Chevrolet’s Simona De Silvestro was 25th but only 0.5sec and 0.8sec off her teammates at Ed Carpenter Racing, Conor Daly and Rinus VeeKay respectively.
Cla Driver Team Laps Time Gap Mph 1 Alex Palou
Chip Ganassi Racing 23 1'11.3847 112.865 2
Alexander Rossi
Andretti Autosport 20 1'11.6920 0.3073 112.381 3
Will Power
Team Penske 13 1'11.7183 0.3336 112.340 4
Josef Newgarden
Team Penske 19 1'11.7973 0.4126 112.216 5
Colton Herta
Andretti Autosport 17 1'11.8497 0.4650 112.134 6
Scott Dixon
Chip Ganassi Racing 17 1'11.9192 0.5345 112.026 7
Christian Lundgaard
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 22 1'11.9463 0.5616 111.984 8
Simon Pagenaud
Meyer Shank Racing 16 1'11.9514 0.5667 111.976 9
Callum Ilott
Juncos Hollinger Racing 18 1'11.9899 0.6052 111.916 10
David Malukas
Dale Coyne Racing 21 1'12.1029 0.7182 111.740 11
Romain Grosjean
Andretti Autosport 21 1'12.1568 0.7721 111.657 12
Jack Harvey
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 19 1'12.3024 0.9177 111.432 13
Devlin DeFrancesco
Andretti Autosport 20 1'12.3337 0.9490 111.384 14
Graham Rahal
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 18 1'12.3532 0.9685 111.354 15
Helio Castroneves
Meyer Shank Racing 20 1'12.4744 1.0897 111.168 16
Kyle Kirkwood
A.J. Foyt Enterprises 23 1'12.5186 1.1339 111.100 17
Rinus van Kalmthout
Ed Carpenter Racing 19 1'12.6215 1.2368 110.942 18
Scott McLaughlin
Team Penske 21 1'12.6457 1.2610 110.905 19
Felix Rosenqvist
Arrow McLaren SP 17 1'12.6659 1.2812 110.875 20
Marcus Ericsson
Chip Ganassi Racing 15 1'12.7757 1.3910 110.707 21
Takuma Sato
Dale Coyne Racing 22 1'12.8304 1.4457 110.624 22
Conor Daly
Ed Carpenter Racing 17 1'12.8597 1.4750 110.580 23
Dalton Kellett
A.J. Foyt Enterprises 29 1'12.9890 1.6043 110.384 24
Jimmie Johnson
Chip Ganassi Racing 21 1'13.2065 1.8218 110.056 25
Simona de Silvestro
Paretta Autosport 21 1'13.3861 2.0014 109.786 26 Patricio O'Ward
Arrow McLaren SP 9 1'13.7735 2.3888 109.210 View full results
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