Palou beats Lundgaard, Foster to top FP2 at Mid-Ohio

Following a concert and fireworks to celebrate the Fourth of July on Friday night, fans at the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio were treated to another warm outing for the IndyCar Series which had the Arrow McLaren duo of Christian Lundgaard and Pato O’Ward lead for most of the 45-minute run, but towards the end, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou took command with a lap of 1m05.396s in the No. 10 Honda.

Lundgaard retained second in the No. 7 Chevy (1m 05.552s) but he was separated from O’Ward by Road America polesitter Louis Foster who jumped to third late in the session with the No. 45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda (1m 05.596s) ahead of O’Ward’s No. 5 Chevy (1m 05.727s). Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist completed the top five in the No. 60 Honda (1m 05.794s) after losing a significant portion of Friday to a hybrid powertrain issue.

Kyle Kirkwood, Friday’s fastest driver, was ninth, but teammate Colton Herta was in the mix in sixth; the third member of the Andretti Global team, Marcus Ericsson, crashed. Despite the incident, Ericsson held onto the 12th-fastest time despite missing nearly half of the available running time.

In a continuation from the opening day of practice, it was a rarity to see a completely clean lap produced as at least one driver seemed to run partially or completely off track on each outing.

Firing off at 10:35am ET for 45 minutes, it was hot to start with 82 degrees greeting the field of 27 drivers. Most went straight into qualifying simulation runs and Santino Ferrucci was the first to set a decent lap at 1m 08.614s. Five minutes in and Pato O’Ward produced the first representative lap at 1m 06.614s and sat atop the field as he and the rest went faster over the next 10 minutes to lead with a 1m 06.096s.

After 15 minutes, O’Ward was demoted to P2 by teammate Christian Lundgaard who lapped the 2.2-mile course in 1m 05.553s. Alex Palou was in P3 at 1m 06.123s.

Nearing 25 minutes gone, Lundgaard held P1 but he had countryman Christian Rasmussen in P2 with a 1m 05.975s and Marcus Ericsson in P3 with a 1m 06.054s. And then the red flag flew for Ericsson who encountered snap oversteer at the apex of the final corner and speared off the road and into the barrier with the nose of the car. Moments before the crash, Josef Newgarden went to P3 with a 1m 06.039s.

Once the barrier was repaired, the session resumed with 20 minutes left on the clock and no changes took place in the top five of Lundgaard, Rasmussen, Newgarden, Ericsson, and Nolan Siegel.

Kyffin Simpson motored to P2 at the 12m 30s mark with a 1m 05.926s lap, mirroring his pace from Friday. Colton Herta and Scott McLaughlin found their way into the gravel and grass – just the latest among many drivers – and continued.

With the clock counting down to just under 10 minutes, Lundgaard continued to hold P1 but he had Alex Palou join him in P2 at 1m 05.772s and Felix Rosenqvist in P3 at 1m 05.794s. Herta went to P4 at 1m 05.842s and moments later, O’Ward elevated to P2 with a 1m 05.727s.

Palou shot to P1 with a 1m 05.396s lap as the clock dipped below eight minutes, and with five to go, Louis Foster took P3 with a 1m 05.596s.

The session closed with Palou, Lundgaard, Foster, O’Ward, and Rosenqvist covering the top five.

UP NEXT: Qualifying, 2:30pm ET