Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward led the second IndyCar practice session of the weekend at Mid-Ohio.
The 25-year-old Mexican managed to log 23 laps, with a best of 1m05.9862s, to lead Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal by 0.0577s in the session, with Colton Herta rebounding from an early shunt and put his #Andretti Global Honda in third - 0.1777s behind O’Ward.
David Malukas, making only his second start of the season, slotted fourth in the #66 Meyer Shank Racing Honda ahead Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, a six-time winner at Mid-Ohio, was fifth quickest.
Due to the wet conditions that derailed teams from properly using the softer alternates in opening practice on Friday, they were allowed to use their carry-over sets in second practice.
Within five minutes of the start of the session, Palou picked up where he left off and nailed a lap 1m07.1994s to set the benchmark.
Palou was bumped from the top spot by Rinus VeeKay just a few minutes later before he was then knocked down moments later by rookie Linus Lundqvist, Palou’s team-mate, who put in a 1m06.8977s flying lap.
Colton Herta, Andretti Global w/ Curb-Agajanian Honda
Photo by: Josh Tons / Motorsport Images
The top spot changed hands with 32 minutes left in the session with another CGR driver, this time Marcus Armstrong, taking down his team-mate after a fast lap of 1m06.7007s.
O’Ward temporarily found the top spot before Marcus Ericsson replaced him with a quick lap of 1m06.5774s, which happened seconds before the red flag came out when Herta went off and into the tyre barrier in Turn 12 with just under 26 minutes to go. He was able to return to the pits, albeit without his front wing and nose assembly that was removed by the AMR Safety Team.
A second red flag came out shortly after the session resumed when Kyffin Simpson spun in Turn 11 and stalled, needing assistance to re-fire from the AMR Safety Team after not being able to self-start the new hybrid system.
VeeKay was the first driver to swap to the alternates with 18 minutes to go and was on a quick lap but had to bail out upon finding traffic.
Palou, still on the harder primary compound, managed to climb back to the top of the leaderboard after a quick lap of 1m06.4925s with roughly 12 minutes left.
Shortly after recently-signed Arrow McLaren rookie Nolan Siegel dished out a quick lap on alternates to land fourth on the timing sheets with nine minutes remaining, his team-mate O’Ward put down a quick lap of 1m05.9862s on the softer compound to end the session on top.
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1'06.0439
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1'06.1639
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1'06.2076
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1'06.2189
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1'06.6643
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1'06.7464
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1'06.7715
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1'06.7800
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1'06.8377
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1'06.9342
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1'07.0593
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1'07.0845
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1'07.1691
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1'07.2506
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1'07.4084
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1'08.1577
Source: Autosport