Toronto IndyCar: Pagenaud leads Rosenqvist in FP2

Not for the first time at this track, 2017 Toronto polesitter Pagenaud had a clear edge over his Penske teammates, eclipsing Josef Newgarden and Will Power by over half a second as the drivers got to try Firestone alternate compound tires for the only time before qualifying.

Sebastien Bourdais was barely more than a tenth off top spot, also ducking his Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan Honda under the 1-minute barrier, while Spencer Pigot had a very encouraging run to fourth for Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevy to beat the second Ganassi car of Scott Dixon by one-tenth.

Two sons of former Toronto winners and series champions, Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti, grabbed sixth and seventh ahead of Newgarden, Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti Autosport-Honda) and Power.

Alex Rossi had a scrappy session, clattering the final turn with rightside rear and front wheels, and then lost five minutes for stopping on track with a bent left-front wheel after scraping it on the wall at the inside of Turn 9.

However Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ rookie Marcus Ericsson redefined “incident-packed” session, smacking the final turn (Turn 11) wall with his right-rear, bouncing off the outside wall at Turn 5, visiting an escape road and then having a near miss with another tire barrier. Unsurprisingly, he wound up last, as series returnee Sage Karam drew well within two seconds of Pagenaud’s P1 time as he starts to come to grips with the Carlin-Chevrolet.

Third practice begins at 10.20am local (Eastern) time tomorrow.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	19	59.8708			107.391
2	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	17	59.9311	0.0603	0.0603	107.283
3	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	23	59.9866	0.1158	0.0555	107.184
4	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	23	1'00.0401	0.1693	0.0535	107.088
5	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	19	1'00.1445	0.2737	0.1044	106.903
6	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	20	1'00.4091	0.5383	0.2646	106.434
7	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	18	1'00.4435	0.5727	0.0344	106.374
8	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	24	1'00.4509	0.5801	0.0074	106.361
9	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	15	1'00.4696	0.5988	0.0187	106.328
10	Will Power	Team Penske	22	1'00.4981	0.6273	0.0285	106.278
11	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	19	1'00.6106	0.7398	0.1125	106.080
12	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	20	1'00.6756	0.8048	0.0650	105.967
13	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing	21	1'00.7419	0.8711	0.0663	105.851
14	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	13	1'00.8161	0.9453	0.0742	105.722
15	Max Chilton	Carlin	20	1'00.8572	0.9864	0.0411	105.651
16	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	18	1'00.9907	1.1199	0.1335	105.419
17	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	22	1'01.0845	1.2137	0.0938	105.257
18	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	21	1'01.1068	1.2360	0.0223	105.219
19	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	3	1'01.3290	1.4582	0.2222	104.838
20	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	20	1'01.4316	1.5608	0.1026	104.663
21	Sage Karam	Carlin	25	1'01.6066	1.7358	0.1750	104.365
22	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	22	1'01.6437	1.7729	0.0371	104.303
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