Bobby Travis · NASCAR/IndyCar-Korrespondent
On Markham's freshly paved street course, the second free practice session completely rewrote the order, while Will Power suffered the weekend's first wall contact.
After Friday's washout that eliminated the entire schedule, IndyCar was forced to compress everything into Saturday. Free Practice 2 promptly delivered answers about who could adapt fastest to the new 3.52-kilometer course in Markham, and those answers looked radically different from session one.
Foster Flips the Script
Louis Foster was third in FT1, but the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing rookie set the quickest time in FT2 with a 1:14.1793, nearly eight-tenths faster than the morning's best effort. That tells the story of how much grip the fresh asphalt was still gaining lap after lap, a factor every team needs to keep in mind when Sunday's tire strategy comes into play.
Behind him sat Marcus Ericsson, just 0.014 seconds back, followed by David Malukas, who'd impressed at Team Penske with sixth in FT1 and had now worked his way up to third. Kyle Kirkwood rounded out fourth place in a session that went very smoothly for Andretti Global overall, even if one notable team name doesn't appear on this list.
Palou Slips Back, Schumacher Makes Big Gains
What looked like a clear statement from championship leader Álex Palou in FT1 quickly got put into perspective during FT2. The Ganassi driver, arriving in Markham with over a 100-point cushion, fell back to seventh, around four-tenths behind Foster. That's hardly a disaster on a new street course, but it showed the competition had closed in more during the second session than it had all morning.
The most eye-catching jump forward came from Mick Schumacher. The RLL driver had been thirteenth in FT1 but worked his way up to fifth in FT2, just over a tenth behind his teammate Foster. For a squad with two cars in the top five, that's a strong signal heading into qualifying, especially on a circuit nobody in the field has real race experience on.
Power Crashes, Repairs Begin Against the Clock
But the afternoon's biggest headline didn't come from any time on the board, it came from a wall hit. Will Power ran too deep into turn nine, picked up dirt off the green run-off area, and clipped the tire barriers in turn ten. The red flag came out immediately. Power took full responsibility afterward, describing what looked like a gentle impact that produced surprisingly serious damage, a tough spot on a new track where every lost session minute matters.
That meant overnight repair work under time pressure for Andretti Global, with qualifying scheduled to run immediately Saturday evening. Power's incident knocked him down to nineteenth in the running order, well away from the top ten his team had otherwise occupied in the session. How much the crash impacts his race outlook will only become clear Sunday when the green flag drops for 90 laps through Markham Centre and we see whether Foster, Ericsson, and Malukas can back up their FT2 pace once real racing starts.
