Kirkwood heads second practice on the streets of Detroit

Kyle Kirkwood led an informative second practice session on the downtown streets of Detroit as he recorded the best lap of the event with a 1m01.814s tour around the 1.7-mile circuit in the No. 27 Andretti Global Honda.

He was shadowed by Will Power in the No. 26 Andretti Honda (1m01.945s), Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward in the No. 5 Chevy (1m02.194s), Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou in the No. 10 Honda (1m02.257s), Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin in the No. 3 Chevy (1m02.292s), and Felix Rosenqvist in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda (1m02.304s).

With teams only allowed to use Firestone’s softer red-banded alternate compound during Friday’s practice session where they perform qualifying simulation runs on the stickier rubber, drivers spent the Saturday morning session on the harder primary tire and found remarkable speed and endurance with the compound.

By rule, each driver must use the softer red tires twice in the race, and from a pre-qualifying strategy approach, and from what was learned in the second session, the primary tire could be used in qualifying by some teams in place of the alternate. The most recent street race in Long Beach saw teams rely heavily on the alternates in the race as the rubber lasted for an impressively long time while maintaining a high level of speed. One street race later, and the tide might have turned towards favoring the primary.

The opening 40-minute segment saw Christian Lundgaard lead the group through the first 10 minutes when a red flag was required to retired the car of Rinus VeeKay, whose Chevy engine released smoke and fluid before he crawled to a stop.

At the halfway point, Josef Newgarden had a solo spin without making contact and resumed without issue.

With 15 minutes left, session leader Kyle Kirkwood had an oversteer moment in Turn 2 and bent the right-rear toe link with wall contact, which brought out the red flag.

Kirkwood’s car was repaired and he returned to improve his session-leading lap (1m02.511s) ahead of Scott McLaughlin (1m02.673s), Alex Palou (1m03.090s), Pato O’Ward (1m03.102s), Will Power (1m03.117s), and Nolan Siegel (1m03.177s).

The start of the first split-group session went red right away as Lundgaard appeared to suffer the same problem as VeeKay with his Chevy engine belching smoke from the exhaust—the right bank, primarily—before he stopped the car and got out.

When the session resumed, it was Friday’s fastest driver in Alex Palou who claimed first (1m02.257s) with the quickest lap of the event. Behind him, it was David Malukas (1m02.380s), Scott Dixon (1m02.491s), Marcus Armstrong (1m02.541s), Alexander Rossi (1m02.878s), and Nolan Siegel (1m03.022s) who completed the top six. Sting Ray Robb did not take part in the session.

The closing 12-minute session saw Palou’s time bettered by Kirkwood who turned the fastest lap of the event on his final tour (1m01.814s) to lead Andretti teammate Will Power (1m01.945s), Pato O’Ward (1m02.194s), Scott McLaughlin (1m02.292s), Felix Rosenqvist (1m02.304s), and Marcus Ericsson (1m02.361s).

UP NEXT: Qualifying, 1pm ET

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