The 22-year-old Dane vaulted to the top of the leaderboard in the final moments of the 45-minute session with a 1m09.5588s lap on the 2.439-mile, 14-turn IMS circuit.
Will Power temporarily grabbed first in the final minute prior to Lundgaard’s late push, but his No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet ended up 0.1311s off the pacesetter’s mark.
Power wasn’t surprised to see the dip in times compared to the first session, especially since conditions for second practice were not as cool and also did not feature the softer alternate tires.
“Yeah, it did change a little bit but they’re just different tires,” Power said. “The reds (softer alternates) are so much nicer to drive on. We haven’t changed much, but we’re still close, close to where we were.”
And because of that, Power believes tomorrow’s 85-lap race will be more about the pace set on the alternate tire.
“I think it would be definitely a red race,” Power said. “I mean, tire is just harder this year so it’ll come back to the old style race here where you’ve got to run all your reds.”
Six-time IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon claimed, driving the No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, claimed third.
Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin the majority of the session, which at one point saw the top five separated by less than a tenth of a second. However, the push in the final minutes from his rivals saw the New Zealander fade to fourth, 0.3060s behind Lundgaard.
Felix Rosenqvist continued his strong early season form and ended up putting his No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda in fifth.
Pato O’Ward ended up sixth, ahead of Marcus Armstrong, who finished seventh after undergoing an engine change after an issue in the opening session to start the day.
Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Agustin Canapino, who was second in the first practice, backed up the performance with an eighth in the second session. He finished ahead of Graham Rahal in ninth, who, like Armstrong, underwent an engine change at the end of the first session.
Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden took the final spot of the top 10.
The trouble spot of the session was Turn 10, which caught out the likes of Tom Blomqvist (Meyer Shank Racing) and Alexander Rossi (Arrow McLaren), among others.
But the only red flag came just after the halfway point of practice after Dale Coyne Racing’s Jack Harvey went for a spin before coming to a stop in the grass on the inside of the corner.
None of the cars appeared to encounter engine trouble, unlike this morning’s troubled session.