Sonoma IndyCar: Newgarden fastest, O’Ward stars in FP2

Team Penske Chevrolet’s Newgarden, who is suffering food poisoning, set a fastest time of 1min17.8156sec, 110.338mph, to top the session by a mere 0.0836sec ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda’s Scott Dixon.

Meanwhile O’Ward, making his first IndyCar start in Sonoma’s last after winning the Indy Lights title, sent his Harding Racing-Chevrolet around the track less than 0.2sec slower than the champion, to edge a couple of hundredths clear of Will Power, who made a slight mistake in sector 2 on his fastest run.

James Hinchcliffe was another driver to rebound in the session that allows the teams to run a set of red ‘alternate’ Firestones in preparation for qualifying tomorrow.

Alex Rossi, who is Dixon’s strongest threat for this year’s championship, was sixth fastest ahead of the second Ganassi car of Ed Jones which suffered a spin at Turn 7.

Dale Coyne Racing’s rookies Santino Ferrucci and Pietro Fittipaldi did a fine job to outpace their team leader Sebastien Bourdais whose DCR car is co-owned by Vasser-Sullivan.

This morning’s pacesetter Ryan Hunter-Reay completed the top 10, while Pagenaud slumped to 17th, one second slower than Newgarden – the same distance as Colton Herta finished behind fellow debutant and Harding teammate Colton Herta.

Tony Kanaan’s 300th consecutive – and 360th overall – IndyCar start looks set to be from near the tail of the field, as the AJ Foyt Racing-Chevys continue to struggle.

Sonoma, IndyCar second practice:

Pos.	#	Driver	Time	Gap	Mph
1	1	Josef Newgarden	1'17.8156		110.338
2	9	Scott Dixon	1'17.8992	0.0836	110.219
3	8	Patricio O'Ward	1'18.0073	0.1917	110.067
4	12	Will Power	1'18.0284	0.2128	110.037
5	5	James Hinchcliffe	1'18.2356	0.4200	109.745
6	27	Alexander Rossi	1'18.3884	0.5728	109.532
7	10	Ed Jones	1'18.4924	0.6768	109.386
8	39	Santino Ferrucci	1'18.5961	0.7805	109.242
9	19	Pietro Fittipaldi	1'18.6016	0.7860	109.234
10	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	1'18.6064	0.7908	109.228
11	26	Zach Veach	1'18.6093	0.7937	109.224
12	20	Jordan King	1'18.6350	0.8194	109.188
13	30	Takuma Sato	1'18.6790	0.8634	109.127
14	15	Graham Rahal	1'18.7226	0.9070	109.067
15	6	Carlos Munoz	1'18.7812	0.9656	108.985
16	98	Marco Andretti	1'18.8063	0.9907	108.951
17	22	Simon Pagenaud	1'18.8075	0.9919	108.949
18	18	Sébastien Bourdais	1'18.9063	1.0907	108.813
19	21	Spencer Pigot	1'18.9260	1.1104	108.785
20	60	Jack Harvey	1'18.9489	1.1333	108.754
21	88	Colton Herta	1'19.0086	1.1930	108.672
22	23	Charlie Kimball	1'19.0498	1.2342	108.615
23	14	Tony Kanaan	1'19.2466	1.4310	108.345
24	59	Max Chilton	1'19.3278	1.5122	108.234
25	4	Matheus Leist	1'19.3579	1.5423	108.193