Indianapolis Motor Speedway – Freedom 100 – Monday, May 22 – test session #2 notes and results

If this afternoon’s Indy Lights test session is an indicator of what kind of a race the Freedom 100 will be, the annual 40-lap race will be sure to wow the Carb Day Crazies.

The quickest lap of the afternoon test session was turned by Carlin rookie Matheus Leist, who will be making his first oval start on Friday. Liest’s quickest lap was clocked at 199.568mph, and the Brazilian also experienced a his first big oval moment, when his No. 26 had a tank slapper, just missing the wall at the exit of Turn 2 near the end of the session.

The first-half of the second Indy Lights test session in preparation for the Freedom 100 had the majority of the 14 entered drivers doing qualification simulations. The no-tow speeds ranged between 197.371mph and 191.762mph. Colton Herta had the fastest lap no-tow lap at 197.371 mph, and was followed closely by fellow rookies Leist, and Ryan Norman.

The final 30 minutes of the session had the 14 drivers mixing it up in what looked more like race day than a test session.

The final yellow flag of the session flew when Juncos Racing rookie Nicolas Dapero got well below the white line while going by Dalton Kellett in Turn 1. The rear end of the No. 31 stepped out at the exit of the corner and the distinctive green, white and orange liveried machine did a 360 degree spin before making contact with the SAFER barrier on the inside Turn 2.

The session went back to green with seven minutes left and once again, the track was buzzing with a horde of 2.0L turbo-charged Mazda power plants, as drivers went two and three wide into Turn 1 and Turn 3, often remaining two-wide for an entire lap.

Herta’s morning lap of 200.070mph was the quickest of the day, while Aaron Telitz’s morning lap of 199.610mph also left him ahead of Leist.

Indy Lights hits the track again for three sessions on Thursday. The 14 drivers will have two practice sessions at 9am and 11am and will qualify at 1:30pm. The green flag for the Freedom 100 is on Friday at 12:30pm.

Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tire test session #2 overall time sheet