The Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course has been fast ground for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in recent years, a trend that continued Friday afternoon in the second practice for the Sonsio Grand Prix.

RLL’s three drivers finished 1-2-3 on the speed chart, with Graham Rahal leading at 1 minute, 9.7242 seconds in the No. 15 Fifth Third Bank Honda. Rookie Louis Foster was second at 1:09.8626 in the No. 45 Mi-Jack Honda, and Devlin DeFrancesco ended up third at 1:10.0690 in the No. 30 EVTEC Honda.

SEE: Practice Results

Rahal’s time was the quickest among the two practice sessions today on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course. The performance of RLL should come as no surprise, as Rahal won the pole and finished second on this circuit in an August 2023 race. Christian Lundgaard, now with Arrow McLaren, finished third in this race last year for RLL and second here in July 2022.

The top six drivers in today’s second practice all turned their best laps on the Firestone Firehawk alternate tire, which offers more grip but less durability.

“We’re just not in that place yet as a team where we can be overconfident,” Rahal said. “It hurt us at Barber. At Barber, we should have gone red-red (two sets of alternate tires) in qualifying, and we didn’t. I didn’t get a good run on reds because of a mechanical problem on Friday at Barber, and it’s haunted me. It’s kind of really angered me this week. I felt like we kind of gave up a race weekend by not being a little more thorough in our thinking there.

“This one really came down to first session. If we thought we were good in the first session, we were not going to do it (use alternate tires in second session). But we weren’t that good, so we had to. We needed to get a good taste to understand what we need for qualifying.”

NTT P1 Award qualifying starts at 4:35 p.m. ET today (FS1, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network).

Sting Ray Robb was fourth in the second practice today at 1:10.1657 in the No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet. His teammate, Conor Daly, rounded out the top five at 1:10.1919 in the No. 76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet.

NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship leader Alex Palou was the quickest driver on the harder Firestone Firehawk primary tires, seventh at 1:10.2943 in the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. Palou, who has won this race the last two years, has captured three of the first four races this season.

“Guys like Palou, if you have his confidence level, you know you’re good (on alternate tires),” Rahal said of his rival’s decision to stay on primary tires for this practice.

Live coverage of the 85-lap race starts at 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday on FOX, the FOX Sports app and the INDYCAR Radio Network.