O’Ward & Ericsson Crash, Malukas Leads Second Practice

AJ Foyt Racing's David Malukas (4) topped Alex Palou to lead Saturday morning's NTT IndyCar Series practice at Barber Motorsports Park. (Paul Hurley/Penske Entertainment photo)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – A chaotic pre-qualifying practice session for the NTT IndyCar Series Saturday morning at Barber Motorsports Park saw two stars take wild rides in wet conditions.

First, Pato O’Ward went off-track through the grass exiting the final corner and smacked into the barriers with his No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, halting the action just inside of 19 minutes to go in the 45-minute open session.

Then, nine minutes later, Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson slid wildly through the gravel at turns 12 and 13 before catching a grass lip that nearly sent his No. 28 Honda upside down before it landed back on all four tires.

Ericsson’s car then backed into the barriers, forcing a second red flag with 10 minutes of practice left.

Many drivers bolted rain tires onto their cars to go back out once the 17-turn Barber circuit was fully drenched, but no one came anywhere close to the time of one minute, 8.1661 seconds set by A.J. Foyt Racing’s David Malukas, who led second practice overall.

It’s the third time in Malukas’ career that he’s topped an IndyCar Series practice session.

“I think we got pretty lucky with our time and the timing of when we went out in the drier conditions,” Malukas said. “I think there’s a lot of quick guys out there, but we made some good gains from yesterday. Qualifying will probably be very close, and I think it’ll be interesting if it rains, but it almost felt like a dry circuit in some ways even in the wet … so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

Three-time and reigning series champion Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing was second (1:08.1958), followed by O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren teammate Christian Lundgaard in third (1:08.3082).

Team Penske’s Will Power and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Louis Foster closed the top five.

All of the fast laps came during drying conditions on slick tires. Once the rain hit, lap times dropped off to the one-minute-23-second threshold and slower.

O’Ward’s shunt was remarkable in that he was able to drive away with seemingly minimal damage to his machine, taking it back to the pit area for repairs to the right-front wing and other checks by the team.

“I lost the rear (tires), and once I got into the grass, I was pretty much a passenger,” O’Ward explained. “It’s really wet. I don’t know if I touched some paint when opening the radius into the corner … and that’s why I lost rear grip, or maybe I just lost it, I don’t know.

“But as soon as I got into the grass I was along for the ride. The damage isn’t as bad as I thought, but the steering column is kind of ehh … so we didn’t want to risk (going back out on-track) with the high-speed corners here,” O’Ward continued. “We’ll see what qualifying brings. It definitely hasn’t been the best of weekends so far.”

Ericsson climbed out under his own power after his airborne moment, and was later evaluated and cleared by the IndyCar Medical Unit.

Two-time defending Barber race winner Scott McLaughlin was sixth-quick on single-lap pace in Saturday morning practice. Ericsson was 20th and O’Ward ended 26th of the 27 drivers in the field.

Slowest overall in practice was Josef Newgarden, who could only muster a best lap of 1:23.9190 on wet tires in the rain, whereas most of his competition ran early in the drier part of the session.

Pole qualifying for the NTT IndyCar Series is slated for 2:30 p.m. ET (1:30 p.m. CT), live on FS1 and the IndyCar Radio Network.