IndyCar Long Beach: O’Ward leads Kirkwood and Grosjean in FP2

Less than five minutes into the 1h45m session, the red flags were waved after Callum Ilott hit the apex kerbs at Turn 5 before finding the tyre wall in his Juncos Hollinger Racing entry.

Barely three minutes after the session restarted, Rinus VeeKay pulled a wheelie over the same kerb, meeting the same fate in the wall.

When action resumed, it was Scott McLaughlin who first flirted with the 67-second barrier, his Chevrolet-powered Team Penske car lapping in 1m07.0182s.

While team-mate Josef Newgarden was his initial closest challenger, Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing made it a Kiwi 1-2, his Honda-powered car just 0.0775s off the top.

With 20 minutes to go, O’Ward, Friday’s pacesetter, was very close, less than a tenth further back, while Kyle Kirkwood led the Andretti Autosport squad in fourth, then went fastest.

However, he was quickly displaced by team-mate Colton Herta, by 0.0775s, who produced a 1m06.6868s, 106.240mph on the 1.968-mile street course.

Felix Rosenqvist got the second Arrow McLaren up to third, before Team Penske’s Will Power slotted ahead, 0.1275 off Herta before O’Ward then lowered the target to 1m06.5273s.

Kyle Kirkwood, Andretti Autosport Honda

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

Newgarden and McLaughlin took turns at knocking him off his pedestal, moving up to second and third respectively.

In the closing 10 minutes, drivers started coming out on Firestone’s green sidewalled alternate compound tyres, with Dixon hitting the top spot with a 1m06.2407s.

However, this was never going to stand, and O’Ward slammed in a 1m05.9982s, which left him just 0.0167s ahead of Kirkwood, who got a nudge around the hairpin by a frustrated Power.

The reigning champion had already smacked a wall broadside, and he wasn’t the only Penske driver to make an error in the closing stages as McLaughlin suffered a spin.

That left Grosjean in third ahead of Herta – who was held up by McLaughlin’s incident – making it three Andretti cars in the top four.

McLaughlin retained fifth ahead of Rosenqvist, while the third Arrow McLaren of Alexander Rossi slithered with brakes locked down the Turn 9 escape road.

Dixon, Ericsson and Alex Palou were in seventh, eighth and ninth for Ganassi ahead of Newgarden, who rounded off the top 10.

Qualifying begins at 8.05pm BST.

Full IndyCar Grand Prix of Long Beach Qualifying results:

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	1'05.9982			107.348
2	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	1'06.0149	0.0167	0.0167	107.321
3	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	1'06.0629	0.0647	0.0480	107.243
4	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	1'06.1475	0.1493	0.0846	107.106
5	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	1'06.1870	0.1888	0.0395	107.042
6	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	1'06.2332	0.2350	0.0462	106.968
7	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.2407	0.2425	0.0075	106.955
8	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.4531	0.4549	0.2124	106.614
9	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.6051	0.6069	0.1520	106.370
10	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'06.6125	0.6143	0.0074	106.358
11	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'06.6288	0.6306	0.0163	106.332
12	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	1'06.6293	0.6311	0.0005	106.332
13	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	1'06.7436	0.7454	0.1143	106.150
14	Will Power	Team Penske	1'06.8138	0.8156	0.0702	106.038
15	Marcus Armstrong	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.8226	0.8244	0.0088	106.024
16	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'06.9490	0.9508	0.1264	105.824
17	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	1'06.9765	0.9783	0.0275	105.780
18	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'07.0497	1.0515	0.0732	105.665
19	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	1'07.0610	1.0628	0.0113	105.647
20	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	1'07.0613	1.0631	0.0003	105.647
21	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger Racing	1'07.1325	1.1343	0.0712	105.535
22	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'07.2649	1.2667	0.1324	105.327
23	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'07.3016	1.3034	0.0367	105.269
24	Ray Robb	Dale Coyne Racing	1'07.8684	1.8702	0.5668	104.390
25	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'07.9488	1.9506	0.0804	104.267
26	Benjamin Pedersen	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'08.0614	2.0632	0.1126	104.094
27	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	1'26.3869	20.3887	18.3255	82.012
View full results