Oilpressure

Belated Day Two greetings from Barber Motorsports Park! Susan is feeling much, much better today; but we took it easy at the hotel this morning and didn’t arrive to the track until around 9:00 – just as Practice Two began. We dropped our stuff off at the media center and then headed out to the pits.

By the time we got there, we noticed that all cars were in the pits and no cars were on-track. That’s because Alexander Rossi had just punched the wall. Most of you reading this probably saw it happen. I’ve yet to even see a replay of it, but it was bad enough that it moved the wall coming onto the front-stretch, that had to be repaired. It was also a hard-enough hit that Rossi’s engine has to be replaced before qualifying.

Practice resumed and another red-flag came out when Will Power found the gravel pit in Turns 8 & 9, with about nine minutes to go.

Unlike yesterday’s times, this morning seemed to be the domain for Chevy. Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay led the session with a time of 1:05.9264. Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward was second-quick just barely a tick slower. Scott McLaughlin continued to show consistent speed from yesterday, by being fourth-quick today. Colton Herta was the only Honda in the Top-Four this morning.

Romain Grosjean was fifth-quick. He, Herta and McLaughlin were the ones that showed consistent speed from yesterday through this morning. Don’t be too surprised if those three end up in the Fast Six during qualifying.

Speaking of qualifying, it’s a short window between practice and qualifying this weekend. Qualifying gets underway at Noon CDT, and will be available exclusively on Peacock. We are about to wrap here and head back down to watch qualifying.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Oilpressure’s camera’s battery was dead this morning (oops!), so again we had to rely on the iPhone camera – but her eye. Here are a couple of Romain Grosjean shots she took. One was Grosjean sitting in his car with the special “Enevate” livery. Another is after practice as he is chatting with NBC’s Marty Snider. Her battery is charging as I type, so it should be charged enough for qualifying.

That’ll do it for now. Please check back later today. Susan “might” have a post, but I’ll have a definite follow-up poost here after qualifying and the Final Practice later this afternoon.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on April 30, 2022 at 11:38 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.