The drivers of the NTT IndyCar Series sped around The Thermal Club course on Saturday morning, completing the second practice session of the weekend.
The fastest driver of the session was Christian Lundgaard, who turned a lap of 1:40.6421 in his Arrow McLaren Chevy.
The Dane was well ahead of his rivals, with a massive 0.483 second gap back to Alex Palou in second place. The gap was partly due to the fact that Lundgaard was the only driver to set a time on the softer tire compound.
After looking strong on Friday, Marcus Ericsson again showed his speed by setting the third fastest time of the day. He was followed by Marcus Armstrong and Pato O’Ward, who rounded out the top five.
The time sheets looked mixed overall for many of the teams. Will Power set the sixth fastest time, but his Team Penske team-mates were only 10th and 16th fastest.
Similarly, Chip Ganassi Racing and Arrow McLaren had drivers spaced out through the field. More setup work to do for most everyone on the grid.
Grip issues continue
Drivers continued to struggle with grip, with the Firestone tires simultaneously sliding all around the course and wearing so quickly that only a couple laps were completed on each set.
Most laps were completed on the harder compound tire as teams made sure to keep enough sets of the softer compound available for the qualifying runs later in the day.
The most eventful moment of the session was Scott McLaughlin, who managed to head out onto track with a cooling fan still attached to the right rear wheel of this #3 Team Penske Chevy.
The fan eventually flew off, and was flung off the course. The team earned a monetary fine for the incident, but no other damage was done.
Other than that one incident, there were no major problems on track. A few drivers pushed the limits a bit too far and took a quick trip through the gravel, but all were able to keep control of their machines.
Robert Shwartzman nearly was able to turn some all-important laps during the session, but ended up staying on pit lane.
His #83 entry caught fire on Friday during his first out-lap of the weekend and his woes continued on into the second day of the weekend. The PREMA crew stayed at the track until 4:30 AM assembling a new car, and only returned to their hotel for a couple hours before returning to the track early.
The new car was not ready at the start of the session, but Shwartzman was able to climb in with a few minutes remaining. He only had enough time to complete a single install lap to complete some system checks, but not much more.
The rookie will be severely hindered for the rest of the weekend, and his first laps at speed will come during qualifying later in the day.
The next time drivers will be on track will be for qualifying, which takes place at 2:00 PM local time, 5:00 PM eastern time.
