On Saturday morning, IndyCar headed back out on track to complete their second practice session of the afternoon.
Much like the day before, drivers found themselves stacked up as they attempted to find a clean piece of race track. The backups nearly caused a couple crashes as drivers on fast laps came across the slow cars.
Clear air was even more important, since the name of the game was finding the perfect balance for qualifying later in the afternoon.
The driver that made the most of the session was Alex Palou, who completed his fast lap in a time of 1:05.3961.
Sporting a special OpenAI livery this weekend, Palou looks as if he may have the pace to be able to continue his impressive string of results.
Christian Lundgaard led the standings for a time, but was bumped down to second by time the 45-minute session was over.
The RLL rookie Louis Foster was third quick, followed by last year’s winner Pato O’Ward in fourth. Felix Rosenqvist rounded out the top five with a strong showing of his own.
There was one red flag, which was brought out when Marcus Ericsson slid into the wall in the final corner.
The Swede pushed a bit too hard in the final kink onto the front straight, which sent him hard into tire barriers nose first.
Ericsson’s #28 Andretti Global Honda was extracted from the barriers and carried into the paddock, where the team will get to work making quick repairs.
A couple other drivers skipped across the gravel, including Kyffin Simpson, but all were able to continue with no damage except for Ericsson.
Next up on the docket is a knockout qualifying session, which takes place at 2:30 PM eastern time.
