SALINAS, Calif — Prior to last weekend, Juri Vips had only tested an Indy Car twice before. He’d never raced one before and his last competitive race came a year ago. He was still solid last weekend in Portland. In his second appearance this weekend in Laguna Seca, he’s been even better.

Vips was fourth on Thursday’s open test session speed chart with a top time of 1:07.6366-seconds. He turned 59 total laps on the day.

Despite having a mechanical issue on Friday, he was still P6 in the session. With five-hours of testing on Thursday and an incident filled opening practice, he truly didn’t feel like he was playing from behind on Saturday despite an early end for Practice 1.

On Saturday, he was even better. While he was 12th in the morning practice, the Estonian marched all the way to the second round in qualifying and just narrowly missed out on the Firestone Fast Six.

“I knew it was going to be easier coming into this weekend (than Portland),” Vips said. “I didn’t race anything all year so it was going to be a steep learning curve in Portland. But I think we managed that well and I got in the car in Laguna and it was pretty comfortable.

“It’s just a shame to miss out (transferring to Round 3) by such a small margin. I felt like the lap was pretty good. I made one small mistake but I think what happened to us most was Grosjean backed off (ahead) and impeded my first lap. So, then I started my push lap pretty close to him.

“I think that’s why we missed out because all of the RLL cars have been really quick this whole weekend so far so I’m happy to at least see Christian up there. It’s super tough, it’s super physical and the grip is awesome.”

Vips may start from 13th but he technically qualified 7th. The six-spot grid penalty for the engine change from Friday’s practice set him back some.

Still, already qualifying seventh in his second start is remarkable.

“Yeah, not surprising coming from Europe,” Power said of Vips’ pace. “That’s the sort of tracks those guys race on, just like this. He’s obviously a very fast driver. Yeah, I think he’ll be real good in the future.”

RLL’s best results this season have come on tracks like this too.

“I think we’ve all witnessed what that organization has done this year,” admitted Alexander Rossi. “Like Will said, his results and pedigree in Europe kind of speak for itself. Like Will said, this is a quintessential European track now. It’s high speed, very smooth, a lot of grip. Not like most of the places we go to.”