Scott McLaughlin Finishes First in Practice Two Plagued by Red Flags

Team Penske rookie Scott McLaughlin finished at the top of his first career NTT IndyCar Series session, going fastest in practice two for the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterrey. McLaughlin was one of the fastest cars throughout a red-flag filled session finding himself consistently inside the top ten for most of the morning.

All four Penske cars found themselves in the top ten at the end of the session with Simon Pagenaud fourth, Will Power fifth and championship contender Josef Newgarden in tenth. For a long portion of practice, Newgarden, McLaughlin and Pagenaud occupied the top three positions of the scoring sheets.

The first red flag of the session came out within the first ten minutes of the 45-minute session after Dalton Kellett suffered serious damage in turn four. The red flag ate up 12 minutes minutes of valuable track time as Kellett’s A.J. Foyt Enterprises machine was rescued from the gravel and the tyre barrier was repaired.

Practice resumed with 25 minutes to go, as teams began their qualifying simulations on fresh primary tyres. Just like first practice, many drivers still found themselves going off course. Colton Herta, Takuma Sato and more all found themselves dropping tyres into the gravel across the session.

Another red flag came out with ten minutes to go, as Rinus VeeKay went off-track in the same spot as Kellett in turn four, his second offroad adventure of the session. Luckily, this red flag did not take as long as before and everyone was able to get at least one lap on the alternate tyres to gather data as the session went green with three and a half laps to go.

WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca looked a lot more like the congested Interstate 405 as drivers looked for an opening to set a fast lap up until the checkered flag, with the top ten shuffling greatly.

Defending Laguna Seca race winner Herta finished the session second fastest, while championship leader Alex Palou finished third. While lap time isn’t everything in practice, he was the fastest driver of the top five in points, with his title rivals Patricio O’Ward and teammate Scott Dixon finishing twentieth and eighteenth respectively as the teams collected data.

O’Ward’s teammate Felix Rosenqvist found himself sixth fastest, followed by Alexander Rossi who also finished in the top ten in first practice yesterday.

Ryan Hunter-Reay finished eighth ahead of his second-to-last race for Andretti Autosport, with Ed Jones once again showing pace with the Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan crew after finishing fourth in first practice.

Qualifying for the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterrey takes place later today at 1705 EST / 1405 PST / 2205 BST.

Firestone Grand Prix of Monterrey Practice 2 Results