The 2012 champion took just 60.8295sec to lap the street/runway course in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, and that was enough to eclipse Hinchcliffe by just 0.04sec. Hinchcliffe completed 20 laps, second only to Harding Racing's Gabby Chaves.

Three champions occupied the next three places with multiple St. Pete polesitter Will Power in third for Penske-Chevrolet, having been fastest on the harder primary tires. Scott Dixon’s Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda was fourth, and reigning champion Josef Newgarden was fifth.

Alexander Rossi and Robert Wickens were 0.32 and 0.38 off their Andretti and Schmidt teammates respectively, in sixth and seventh, while last year’s St. Pete winner Sebastien Bourdais finished the session in eighth.

AJ Foyt Racing’s Tony Kanaan, who often turns in his best streetcourse performance at this track, was ninth ahead of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Takuma Sato.

Second fastest rookie, behind Wickens, was this morning’s pacesetter Matheus Leist in the second Foyt car.

Juncos Racing’s Rene Binder spun his car at Turn 3 and avoided contact, but stalled it, almost got collected by Ed Jones in the second Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda, and brought out the red flag. Despite being classified last, Binder finished the session only 1.5sec off Hunter-Reay’s pace-setting time.

Soon after, Simon Pagenaud had a similar incident in the #22 Penske-Chevy, and the 2016 champion would finish the session down in 13^th.

Jordan King did a fine job to be within hundredths of Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevy teammate Spencer Pigot, despite an early spin and stall.

Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, free practice 2

Cla	#	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	12	1'00.8295			106.527
2	5	James Hinchcliffe	20	1'00.8724	0.0429	0.0429	106.452
3	12	Will Power	16	1'00.9933	0.1638	0.1209	106.241
4	9	Scott Dixon	20	1'01.1004	0.2709	0.1071	106.055
5	1	Josef Newgarden	19	1'01.1012	0.2717	0.0008	106.054
6	27	Alexander Rossi	17	1'01.1542	0.3247	0.0530	105.962
7	6	Robert Wickens	18	1'01.2190	0.3895	0.0648	105.849
8	18	Sébastien Bourdais	13	1'01.2741	0.4446	0.0551	105.754
9	14	Tony Kanaan	16	1'01.3185	0.4890	0.0444	105.678
10	30	Takuma Sato	17	1'01.3491	0.5196	0.0306	105.625
11	98	Marco Andretti	12	1'01.3780	0.5485	0.0289	105.575
12	4	Matheus Leist	20	1'01.4385	0.6090	0.0605	105.471
13	22	Simon Pagenaud	10	1'01.4509	0.6214	0.0124	105.450
14	20	Jordan King	16	1'01.5579	0.7284	0.1070	105.267
15	10	Ed Jones	20	1'01.5819	0.7524	0.0240	105.226
16	88	Gabby Chaves	22	1'01.6177	0.7882	0.0358	105.165
17	21	Spencer Pigot	15	1'01.7088	0.8793	0.0911	105.009
18	26	Zach Veach	16	1'01.8423	1.0128	0.1335	104.783
19	23	Charlie Kimball	18	1'01.9166	1.0871	0.0743	104.657
20	15	Graham Rahal	17	1'01.9993	1.1698	0.0827	104.517
21	19	Zachary Claman DeMelo	19	1'02.0368	1.2073	0.0375	104.454
22	59	Max Chilton	19	1'02.0636	1.2341	0.0268	104.409
23	60	Jack Harvey	18	1'02.1640	1.3345	0.1004	104.240
24	32	Rene Binder	19	1'02.3254	1.4959	0.1614	103.970