Nashville IndyCar: Herta keeps top spot in FP2 which ends in chaos

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon spun on his out-lap at Turn 4 – where the track’s major bump had been ground down overnight – bringing out a red flag.

Action resumed with 38 minutes to go, and Alexander Rossi was the first to duck below 1m17s, his fifth lap yielding a 1m16.9814s. Then Ganassi’s points leader Alex Palou delivered a 1m16.5879s, just 0.0004s off Colton Herta’s pace-setting time from Friday’s opening practice.

Pato O’Ward, who missed most of yesterday’s session after crashing on his eighth lap, delivered a 1m16.6s to move into second.

Rossi then set the fastest lap of the weekend with a 1m16.3095s – an average speed of 99.070mph around the 2.17-mile course, while Dixon sprung up to fourth, and Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing) into fifth, before they were split by Simon Pagenaud and shaded by Will Power.

Their Team Penske rookie team-mate Scott McLaughlin vaulted into third, before Herta put everyone else in perspective with a mighty 1m15.6874s – 0.6s faster than anyone else at that point – an average of 99.885mph.

A slap against the wall ended Rahal’s session 15 minutes early, while Palou was the first to join Herta in the sub-76s lap category, but Herta further improved his time with the first 100mph lap of the course – a 1m15.3529s.

Teams started trying out their softer compound Firestones with 10 minutes to go, but a couple minutes later McLaughlin spun into the tyre wall at Turn 6 after locking his rear brakes. The rear wing was damaged but it made little difference as he’d have had to sit out for 5 minutes for causing a red flag.

Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda

Photo by: Joe Skibinski

When action resumed, Rossi understeered into the wall at Turn 10, breaking his right-front suspension, bringing out another red. With time pinched, IndyCar granted the drivers one last timed lap but it all turned farcical, with Max Chilton (Carlin), Dixon and Pagenaud all dropping the ball. Dixon earned points for style, however, as he spun-turned to resume at Turn 4 and clipped the wall hard enough to break off his rear wing.

So Herta finished the session 0.48s clear of his team-mate Rossi, with Dixon and Palou in third and fourth, with Sebastien Bourdais of AJ Foyt Racing being one of few drivers to set a representative time on softs with fifth fastest time.

Rosenqvist was an encouraging quarter of a second ahead of Arrow McLaren SP team-mate O’Ward but neither got a chance to lay down a soft tyre time.

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