Long Beach IndyCar: Rossi leads in FP2, Sato crashes
Alexander Rossi led an Andretti Autosport 1-2 on Friday with teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay clocking second fastest, but Takuma Sato brought the session to a slightly early close with a shunt exiting Turn 1.
Alexander Rossi, Andretti Autosport Honda
Perry Nelson / Motorsport Images
The reigning Indy 500 winner and 2013 Long Beach winner lost the rear of his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda as he hit the apex of the left-hander, and ran out of room to gather it up. The right-rear smacked hard against the concrete wall, just beyond where the tire wall halts. He appeared unhurt.
To that point, Sato was fourth fastest, behind the Andretti cars and Josef Newgarden of Team Penske-Chevrolet who was forced to miss the last 10 minutes of the session for being tardy in attending the post practice weigh-in after this morning’s practice session.
Nevertheless, he was fastest Chevy runner and one of only three drivers – the others being Rossi and rookie Kyle Kaiser – who set a faster time in FP2 (using the alternate-compound red sidewalled tires) than in FP1. Hunter-Reay admitted this left a "major question mark for everyone."
This morning’s pacesetter Scott Dixon was more than half a second slower than Rossi’s 1min08.557sec but fast enough to demote Will Power (Penske) to sixth.
Defending Long Beach winner James Hinchcliffe (Schmidt Peterson) was seventh ahead of the second RLLR car of Graham Rahal, St. Petersburg winner Sebastien Bourdais (Dale Coyne Racing) and the third Penske of Simon Pagenaud.
Rookie Zach Veach wound up 0.12sec quicker than one of his teammates, Marco Andretti, while the returning Jack Harvey was a similar distance behind SPM teammate and fellow-rookie Robert Wickens.
IndyCar Long Beach, practice 2
Cla | # | Driver | Laps | Time | Gap | Interval | Mph |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 27 | Alexander Rossi | 16 | 1'08.5567 | 103.342 | ||
2 | 28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 15 | 1'08.7083 | 0.1516 | 0.1516 | 103.114 |
3 | 1 | Josef Newgarden | 15 | 1'08.9307 | 0.3740 | 0.2224 | 102.781 |
4 | 30 | Takuma Sato | 17 | 1'09.0544 | 0.4977 | 0.1237 | 102.597 |
5 | 9 | Scott Dixon | 19 | 1'09.1049 | 0.5482 | 0.0505 | 102.522 |
6 | 12 | Will Power | 22 | 1'09.1953 | 0.6386 | 0.0904 | 102.388 |
7 | 5 | James Hinchcliffe | 17 | 1'09.2687 | 0.7120 | 0.0734 | 102.280 |
8 | 15 | Graham Rahal | 22 | 1'09.2728 | 0.7161 | 0.0041 | 102.274 |
9 | 18 | Sébastien Bourdais | 17 | 1'09.3552 | 0.7985 | 0.0824 | 102.152 |
10 | 22 | Simon Pagenaud | 24 | 1'09.3687 | 0.8120 | 0.0135 | 102.133 |
11 | 21 | Spencer Pigot | 10 | 1'09.4608 | 0.9041 | 0.0921 | 101.997 |
12 | 14 | Tony Kanaan | 16 | 1'09.5770 | 1.0203 | 0.1162 | 101.827 |
13 | 26 | Zach Veach | 16 | 1'09.6902 | 1.1335 | 0.1132 | 101.661 |
14 | 6 | Robert Wickens | 18 | 1'09.7242 | 1.1675 | 0.0340 | 101.612 |
15 | 98 | Marco Andretti | 17 | 1'09.8166 | 1.2599 | 0.0924 | 101.477 |
16 | 60 | Jack Harvey | 13 | 1'09.8433 | 1.2866 | 0.0267 | 101.439 |
17 | 59 | Max Chilton | 19 | 1'09.8444 | 1.2877 | 0.0011 | 101.437 |
18 | 20 | Jordan King | 14 | 1'09.9069 | 1.3502 | 0.0625 | 101.346 |
19 | 10 | Ed Jones | 20 | 1'10.0616 | 1.5049 | 0.1547 | 101.122 |
20 | 23 | Charlie Kimball | 21 | 1'10.1694 | 1.6127 | 0.1078 | 100.967 |
21 | 32 | Kyle Kaiser | 20 | 1'10.3206 | 1.7639 | 0.1512 | 100.750 |
22 | 4 | Matheus Leist | 18 | 1'10.5076 | 1.9509 | 0.1870 | 100.483 |
23 | 19 | Zachary Claman De Melo | 17 | 1'10.5442 | 1.9875 | 0.0366 | 100.431 |
24 | 88 | Gabby Chaves | 12 | 1'10.8269 | 2.2702 | 0.2827 | 100.030 |
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