Team Penske almost mirrored what they did on this track in this Saturday morning practice session a year ago. In 2022, they went 1-2-3 on the second NTT INDYCAR SERIES practice session of the weekend. This time, they went 1-2 again.

Last year’s pole and race winner, Scott McLaughlin, led the way at 58.1516-seconds in his No. 3 Dallara-Chevrolet. He was P3 in this practice last year. It was a gain though over Friday as his top lap yesterday afternoon was 59.0229-seconds. By going 58.1 a day later, it shows how much he was likely held up in traffic when they put on the Firestone alternate tires late in the session.

This practice was strictly on the Firestone primary tires and near the midway mark, Penske flexed their muscle on them.

Josef Newgarden (58.2695-seconds) was P2 in his No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet. That’s exactly where he was in this practice last year. Newgarden also gained on Friday as his top lap a day ago was 58.7733-seconds (10th fastest).

The gap from McLaughlin and Newgarden was just .1179-seconds. Will Power was 12th in his No. 12 Dallara-Chevrolet.

Can Penske go 1-2-3 in Sunday’s BITNILE.com Grand Prix of Portland (3 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network)?

The last time someone went 1-2-3 in an INDYCAR race was in 2020 at Mid-Ohio when Andretti Autosport swept the podium with Colton Herta, Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay. The last time before that was Team Penske in Sonoma in the 2017 season finale with Simon Pagenaud, Josef Newgarden and Will Power.

It’s a feat that’s only happened 13 times in general with Penske doing it 9 of the times. 1 of the 9 was here in 1994.

• 1979 Team Penske at Ontario: BUnser, Mears, MaAndretti
• 1980 Penske at Michigan: MaAndretti, BUnser, Mears
• 1994 Penske at Milwaukee: Unser Jr., Fittipaldi, Tracy
• 1994 Penske at Portland: Unser Jr., Fittipaldi, Tracy
• 1994 Penske at Mid-Ohio: Unser Jr, Tracy, Fittipaldi
• 1994 Penske at Loudon: Unser Jr, Tracy, Fittipaldi
• 1994 Penske at Nazareth: Tracy, Unser Jr., Fittipaldi
• 2004 Andretti at Nazareth: Wheldon, Kanaan, Franchitti
• 2005 Andretti at St. Pete: Wheldon, Kanaan, Franchitti, Herta
• 2011 Penske at Sonoma: Power, Castroneves, Briscoe
• 2013 Ganassi at Pocono: Dixon, Kimball, Franchitti
• 2017 Penske at Sonoma: Pagenaud, Newgarden, Power
• 2020 Andretti at Mid-Ohio: Herta, Rossi, Hunter-Reay.

Scott Dixon who likely needs to win to keep his championship aspirations alive was P3 (58.2785-seconds) in his No. 9 Dallara-Honda. Dixon was 19th on Friday and 7th in this session last year. Dixon has previously proven that he can unlock another gear, as he remains the only driver in the history of the sport to achieve three distinct streaks of three consecutive race victories (2020; 2013; 2007) in a single season. However, Dixon has also never won at Portland before either (0-for-6). This is actually 1 of 5 tracks on the schedule that he’s never won at. He’s also never won at Laguna Seca (0-for-5), the site of next week’s season finale either. The other four circuits are St. Pete (0-for-19), Iowa (0-for-19) and Barber (0-for-13).

The guy he’s chasing is teammate Alex Palou as the current points leader was P5 (58.3630-seconds) in his No. 10 Dallara-Honda. Palou was P3 on Friday.

Graham Rahal (58.3054-seconds) was the only other driver in the top five in the 45-minute session.

Andretti Autosport looks like the team that’s fallen behind. They only went 14-16-17-18 on Saturday and if you factor in their alliance team with Meyer Shank Racing (P21-P27) and you get the six combined cars in the bottom half of the speed charts.