St. Petersburg IndyCar: Newgarden quickest from Rossi in FP2

The two-time series champion, a winner at the Florida street course in 2019 and 2020, topped the timesheets with a 1m00.062s lap that was over a tenth clear of his 2019 title rival Alexander Rossi and just shy of the track record.

Ex-Formula 1 driver Romain Grosjean set the early pace for Dale Coyne Racing, but the Frenchman's benchmark time was soon bettered by Meyer Shank Racing's Jack Harvey on a 1m00.824s.

The Englishman's time was then eclipsed by Rossi's Andretti Autosport machine on a 1m00.627s, the fastest time of the weekend at that stage, with reigning champion Scott Dixon just behind for Chip Ganassi Racing.

Rossi was finally displaced by Barber polesitter Pato O’Ward's Arrow McLaren SP machine, the Mexican posting a 1m00.516s run on primary tyres to go quickest, while team-mate Felix Rosenqvist slotted into third just over a tenth down.

The front runners started switching to the alternate softer compound with 12 minutes to go, and soon Andretti’s Colton Herta had whittled the leading time down to 1m00.221s– only for Rossi to trim a further 0.04s from that time to reclaim top spot.

However that didn't last for long as Newgarden's time at an average of 107.888mph returned him to the position he'd held on Friday.

Alexander Rossi, Andretti Autosport Honda

Photo by: Art Fleischmann

Rosenqvist’s red-tyre run was spoiled by a front-right lock-up and a trip down the Turn 4 escape road, which meant he was unable to improve and tumbled down to 12th.

A late improvement by Harvey put him ahead of Herta, splitting the fastest Andretti cars, in third spot, with Marcus Ericsson (Ganassi) just behind in fifth.

After a couple of trips down the Turn 4 escape road earlier in the session, Simon Pagenaud placed sixth as the second-quickest of the Penske quartet, narrowly ahead of rookie team-mate Scott McLaughlin and Dixon.

Series rookie Grosjean was an impressive ninth, with O'Ward completing the top 10.

The polesitter in each of his last two visits to St. Petersburg, Will Power had a frustrating session appearing to be blighted by understeer and finished 13th.

Jimmie Johnson was the first driver to switch onto the red-walled alternate tyre but was frustrated by traffic as he set the slowest time, 2.297s slower than Newgarden.

St. Petersburg IndyCar FP2 result

Cla	Driver	Team	Time
1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'00.062
2	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1'00.174
3	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	1'00.219
4	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	1'00.221
5	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'00.221
6	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	1'00.273
7	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	1'00.300
8	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'00.326
9	Romain Grosjean	Dale Coyne Racing with RWR	1'00.419
10	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	1'00.479
11	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'00.507
12	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	1'00.629
13	Will Power	Team Penske	1'00.648
14	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'00.699
15	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport	1'00.701
16	Sébastien Bourdais	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'00.707
17	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'00.709
18	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1'00.716
19	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'00.730
20	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'00.890
21	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'01.276
22	Ed Jones	Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan	1'01.671
23	Max Chilton	Carlin	1'01.715
24	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'02.359
View full results