Ericsson only completed five laps before coming back into the pits. Photo: Kevin Dejewski
Saturday morning’s scheduled practice session at Nashville was drastically shortened due to standing water on the track preventing cars from taking to the track.
The first 60 minutes of the scheduled time were spent with track workers working to clear the water that had built up just before turn 1.
The rain would not typically have been heavy enough to delay running, but it was not possible to drive at any speed without aquaplaning over the water standing in the middle of the track.
Instead of putting in laps as they would have wanted, drivers were forced to wait on pit lane and answer reporter’s questions while the rain continued to fall.
Just as many teams wheeled their cars back to the garage area, race control announced that they had cleared enough water to get practice under way for a short time.
Only 30 minutes remained in the timeslot, and nearly the entire field opted to complete at least some laps in the wet.
Times were considerably slower on the full wet tires, and drivers did their best to get a handle on the track knowing that qualifying later in the afternoon could be wet as well.
Marcus Ericsson turned the fastest time of the session, completing one 2.1-mile lap in 1:31.7999.
He only completed five laps total, choosing to park his car once he set the fast time in order to protect against damage from any potential run-ins with the concrete barriers.
Rinus VeeKay was second fastest, though he was nearly a full second slower. Will Power was third on the timesheets, following up his fast lap on Friday with a good run Saturday morning.
Even Linus Lundqvist completed a few laps, putting his skills to the test in his debut race weekend filling in for Simon Pagenaud.
He did stall his car while trying to turn around in one of the tight runoff areas, however, and was forced to sit out the final few minutes of running.
The rooster tails were quite dramatic coming off the bridge. Photo: Kevin Dejewski
Only two drivers did not take to the track, with Alexander Rossi and Romain Grosjean not setting any times at all.
Rain picked up right at the end of the session, and is not scheduled to move out of the area until after qualifying, which is currently still scheduled for 1:45 PM Central time.
Keyword: Ericsson tops rain-shortened second IndyCar practice