Photo: Kyle McInnes

First, news I hate reporting about. Sad news from Spa. F2 driver Antoine Hubert suffered fatal injuries in a horrific crash at the start of the race this morning.

Colton Herta led his second session of the weekend in final practice this morning for the Grand Prix of Portland.  Herta was the only drive to turn a lap in less than 57 seconds and turned the weekend’s fastest lap yesterday morning. His time of 57.9939 seconds beat the second quickest time of series points leader Josef Newgarden by 0.1083 seconds. Will Power was third, followed by Scott Dixon and Alexander Rossi.

Red flags flew twice. Matheus Leist spun in turn 2 and stalled as he attempted to restart the car. Late in the session Santino Ferrucci’s car stopped just after exiting the pits. Practice resumed after the car was towed back to his pit. It was an adventurous session for Ferrucci. Rossi was coming out of the pits as Ferrucci entered turn 1. The cars nearly touched and Ferrucci needed to go through the chicane.  He was not happy with Rossi.

Hondas again dominated practice. The Team Penske cars of Newgarden and Power were the only Chevys in the top ten.

Qualifying Groups

Group 1`                                                                        Group 2

Newgarden                                                                     Herta

Dixon                                                                                Power

Hunter-Reay                                                                   Rossi

Rahal                                                                                Harvey

Bourdais                                                                         Rosenqvist

Sato                                                                                  Chilton

Hinchcliffe                                                                     Ferrucci

Veach                                                                              Andretti

Daly                                                                                 Pagenaud

Leist                                                                                 Pigot

Kanaan                                                                            Kimball

Jones

 

Notes

Katherine Legge will drive the 2 seater at the start of tomorrow’s race. She says she is working on a ride for next year’s Indianapolis 500.

The 2020 schedule will be released near the beginning of the pre-race show on NBC tomorrow.

Another nice crowd on hand at Portland International Raceway today.

From earlier today:

https://thepitwindow.blog/2019/08/31/qualifying-day-at-portland/