Will Power keeps Team Penske on top in 2nd COTA practice

Will Power fastest on Friday

Will Power was the fastest car on the soft red Firestone tires in the 2nd practice session for the IndyCar Classic race at Circuit of Americas Sunday. Power's lap of 1m47.440s was enough to keep the Penske Chevy team on top at COTA.

Rookie sensation Felix Rosenqvist was 2nd quick just 0.1749s behind Power in his Ganassi Honda.

Alexander Rossi was third quick for Andretti Autosport almost 1/2-second behind Power, while his teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay was 4th.

Ed Jones rounded out the top-5 for Ed Carpenter Racing.

"It's a difficult track, very technical, hard to get the car right," said Power, whose 35 career wins are tied for seventh most in Indy car history. "I felt like we got in a pretty good window that session. Felt like we found where we need to be."

Power qualified first or second at five of the six 2018 NTT IndyCar Series races on permanent road courses but was only able to convert one – the INDYCAR Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course – into a victory and finished third in the season championship.

"We'll just keep massaging on it," Power said in anticipation of NTT P1 Award qualifying on Saturday and Sunday's 60-lap race. "It's going to be tight, it always is."

"I really like this place," Rosenqvist said. "COTA is a track that has a lot of different characteristics in one lap, actually. It has high-speed areas and some very low-speed areas. You need a car that is good everywhere, to be honest. You can't be happy everywhere, and you have to have a setup with a lot of compromise.

"We're happy with the setup so far with the NTT DATA car and will keep working on it."

Rookie Colton Herta had the most eventful day. The son of former Indy car driver Bryan Herta was second in the morning practice but suffered a mechanical issue late in the session that forced a lengthy red flag to halt practice. Herta's Harding Steinbrenner Racing crew worked feverishly to replace the engine in his No. 88 Honda, and while he missed the entire second practice, he was able to turn valuable laps in the warm-up to get a sense for how the car reacted on the Firestone red-sidewall alternate tires.

"Today was a challenging day, to say the least," Herta said. "We were quick in Practice 1 but struggled in (the warm-up). We just couldn't get the balance right on the red Firestone tires, but I know the car can be quick and we have the pace.

"Overall, I am so proud of how hard the No. 88 Latitude Vacation Club guys and how hard the Honda guys worked in between today's practice sessions to get us on track for warmup. We have such a good group at Harding Steinbrenner Racing, I just hope we can get that quick qualifying result I know we're capable of getting."

Practice 2 Results