Jacob Abel fastest again before rain falls in Nashville

Photo: Chris Jones

Jacob Abel went fastest in a rain-hit second practice session for Indy Nxt on the streets of Nashville. 

Most of the field had completed only a handful of laps before the rain began to come down early in the session. Visits to the run-off area by Jagger Jones and Reece Gold signalled that it was too wet for drivers to remain on slick tyres. 

The red flag was thrown as the field came in for wet-weather tyres, and laptimes wouldn’t improve from that point onwards. 

Abel had set the pace at 1m21.5916s, improving on his FP1 benchmark by more than a second. Ernie Francis Jr was second fastest and 0.1410 seconds back, with Hunter McElrea and Louis Foster third and fourth. 

The session went green again with 33 minutes left on the clock, and the field did head back out on grooved tyres, but many drivers soon returned to the pits to end their session early. 

A few drivers did remain out. Notably Matthew Brabham completed 16 laps, having set his fastest lap on lap three. Brabham missed out on running in the opening practice session, and didn’t have the wet-weather experience that the rest of the field enjoyed. 

Christian Rasmussen and Jones both also completed more than 10 laps. Championship leader Rasmussen had set the seventh quickest time in the opening minutes, behind title rival Nolan Siegel and Rasmus Lindh. 

Danial Frost, Kyffin Simpson and Gold completed the top 10. 

There were no more red flag incidents in the second half of FP2, though a few drivers including Jones did have more trips to the run-off areas. 

Free practice results