Road America IndyCar: Newgarden leads Herta in second practice

There was a red flag 10mins into the session for IndyCar debutant Cody Ware spinning his #52 Dale Coyne Racing with RWR-Honda at Canada Corner. The length of the track – 4.014 miles – meant this took four minutes to clear up.

By then, Newgarden had cracked the 1min46sec barrier to clock fastest time with 1min45.9, and it would take 25mins for that speed to be approached, with Pato O’Ward going 0.0776sec slower, ahead of Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosport-Honda and Jack Harvey’s Meyer Shank Racing-Honda.

Again, Oliver Askew – subbing for the injured Rinus VeeKay at Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet – was impressing with fifth fastest on Firestone’s primary tire.

Then with 18mins to go, Hunter-Reay slipped 0.002sec ahead of O’Ward but still behind Newgarden.

Scott Dixon was unfortunate, as the #9 Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda driver struck a piece of debris in the Carousel that damaged the underwing badly enough that the car had to go back to the garage, and he’d have little opportunity to try out the alternate Firestones.

Herta cut down to 0.34sec off the ultimate pace on primaries, while Graham Rahal also climbed into the top six.

With little more than a dozen minutes to go, the teams switched to the softer alternate tires, with Askew and Will Power moved to the top of the times, before Newgarden on reds lowered his barrier to a 1min45.3489sec, at that point 0.45sec faster than Askew. Then Sebastien Bourdais got in the mix with the AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy, before Newgarden shaved a hundredth from his best.

Meanwhile Power stayed out a couple extra laps, gauging tire life on reds and remaining under the 1min46sec barrier.

Alex Palou (Ganassi) and O’Ward made late efforts on reds that sprung them up the charts but were half a second off Newgarden. Instead, it was Herta, Rahal and Grosjean that impressed more, the former getting to within 0.14sec of Newgarden.

Remarkably, Dixon’s crew got the damaged section of underwing repaired in time to send Dixon out on reds with four minutes to go, although there was only time for one flyer on reds, and he ended up 22^nd.

IndyCar newbie Kevin Magnussen turned a 1min46.9516sec lap on his alternate tires, a very respectable 1.1sec from teammate O’Ward, given his lack of familiarity with the car and the extra grip provided by Firestone’s reds.

Also impressing was Jimmie Johnson, 1.8sec off the fastest of his teammates, Palou.