IndyCar Detroit: Rossi tops second practice stalled by red flags

No cars had set a flying lap by the time the first incident occurred, as FP1 pacesetter Kyle Kirkwood was struggling with the brakes on his AJ Foyt car.

After he let David Malukas by on his outside at Turn 7, he couldn’t slow lanugo sufficiently and went when lanugo the inside of the giddy Malukas, but his former Indy Lights rival hadn’t spotted him and the pair made wheel-to-wheel contact, to see Kirkwood slide throne on into the tyre windbreak and Malukas went lanugo the escape road.

At the restart Romain Grosjean of Andretti Autosport was the first suburbanite to set a representative lap time of a 1m16.7467s, followed by a 1m16.3981s with 30 minutes to go.

At that point, it put him 0.666s superiority of the next fastest suburbanite Simon Pagenaud for Meyer Shank Racing, as Josef Newgarden sprung his Team Penske into third just surpassing the red flag fell for Jimmie Johnson spinning as he left the pits.

Once he’d been bump-started, Pagenaud trimmed his deficit to Grosjean lanugo to 0.31s, and Pato O’Ward inserted his Arrow McLaren SP into third.

Then Dalton Kellett’s Foyt car struck the Turn 14 wall hard, bringing out the third red flag of the session. As everyone switched to alternates, Will Power spun his car exiting Turn 11, kept it off the wall but stalled, so out came flipside red flag.

Simon Pagenaud, Meyer Shank Racing Honda

Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images

When the session restarted, Pagenaud and Castroneves created an MSR 1-2, with Pagenaud stuff first suburbanite into the 1m15s, until their semi team-mate Alexander Rossi went top with a 1min15.8101s.

But then Pagenaud suddenly stopped on track late into the session, which powerfully ended FP2 early with no remoter improvements, to see Rossi take top spot from Pagenaud and Newgarden.

With Castroneves in fourth, Malukas landed in fifth superiority of Scott McLaughlin and Felix Rosenqvist as he bounced when from a crash in Friday’s opening practice session.