Kirkwood rises to the top in hectic second Long Beach IndyCar practice

Kyle Kirkwood took the honors in IndyCar’s second practice session at Long Beach on Saturday, while several teams are working to repair crash damage ahead of qualifying later this afternoon.

Kirkwood’s 1m07.5417s came on the final lap of the combined part of the session, edging out Pato O’Ward’s benchmark of 1m.07.1919s. The Andretti Global driver’s time retained the top spot through the split-group part of the session, although Team Penske’s David Malukas was able to better Arrow McLaren man O’Ward’s lap to claim second overall with 1m07.7750s.

O’Ward held on for third fastest, while Alex Palou ended a solid morning for Chip Ganassi Racing fourth on the timesheets. Meyer Shank’s Marcus Armstrong was next, making it five different teams in the top five.

The session was interrupted three times by red flags, the first coming early in the first split session when Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel doinked the outside barrier at the exit of Turn 8, breaking the left-front corner.

Next up was Mick Schumacher, who’d already started the morning on the back foot after losing all of his Friday running to a technical problem. He spent the initial part of the session making up for lost time, reeling off 23 laps, but came undone early in the split session when he overcooked it at the fountain and found the outside wall.

The third and final stoppage was prompted by the hardest hit of the session, which came when Romain Grosjean lost it through Turn 1 and was fired into the barriers; the car initially striking with its front-right corner before snapping around and impacting a second time with the rear.

Grosjean was able to walk away from the wreck unaided, but with less than five minutes left on the clock, there was not enough time to get the mess cleaned up before the checker.

UP NEXT: Qualifying, 3:30pm PT

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