Morning Warm-Up: Mid-Ohio 2018

Can Alexander Rossi fight his way back into the championship picture at Mid-Ohio?

Alexander Rossi won his third pole position of the season at Mid-Ohio and his first on a natural-terrain road course. The California-native had the fastest lap of 64.6802 seconds on his only lap in the final round of qualifying. Rossi won from pole position at Long Beach and he was leading late in the second Belle Isle race after starting on pole position before a lock up blew a tire and dropped him to 12th. Rossi picked up fastest lap in last year's Mid-Ohio race. Rossi could become the second different American driver to win at Mid-Ohio in the last two years. The only time two different American drivers have won in successive seasons at Mid-Ohio was 1984 and 1985 when Mario Andretti won in 1984 and Bobby Rahal won in 1985. Rahal would also win at the track in 1986. Will Power will make his 200th IndyCar start from second position. This is his seventh front row start of the season and the 89th front start of his career. He was 0.2137 seconds behind Rossi. Forty of Power's 66 podium finishes have come from him starting on the front row. The Australian has not finished on the podium in the last four races and he has not had a top five finish in the last five races. This is his longest drought in both categories since the end of the 2016 and start of the 2017 season when his best finish through the final three races of 2016 and first three races of 2017 was eighth.

Ryan Hunter-Reay will start third, his seventh consecutive top ten start. Since 2007, Hunter-Reay has made it out of the first round of qualifying all but one year at Mid-Ohio. That was when he started 15th in 2008. Josef Newgarden makes it an all-American second row. Newgarden could become the first driver to win at Mid-Ohio with car #1 since Al Unser, Jr. won in 1995. That was also Unser, Jr.'s second consecutive Mid-Ohio victory. Robert Wickens starts fifth in what is his seventh consecutive top ten start. On this day in 2007, Wickens finished third in the Atlantics race at San Jose behind Jonathan Bomarito and Franck Perera. It was his last podium finish in a North American-based series until he finished second at Phoenix in April. He also had fastest lap in that San Jose race. The surprise in qualifying was Max Chilton as the Carlin driver will start sixth. It was Carlin's first Fast Six appearance and it was Chilton's second Fast Six appearance, his first since Watkins Glen 2016. Chilton is one of two drivers this season to have started every race and not finish in the top ten. He has not had a top ten finish in his last 13 races, the longest drought of his IndyCar career.

Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato make it an all-Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing row four. Rahal could accomplish something that has never been done before at Mid-Ohio. The seventh position on the grid has never produced a Mid-Ohio winner. The best finish for the seventh-place starter was second in 1995 with Paul Tracy. The only other time the seventh-place starter has finished on the podium at Mid-Ohio was in the first IndyCar race held at the track in 1980 when Bill Alsup finished third. Sato has finished outside the top twenty in three races this season after his retirement at Toronto. It is the most finishes outside the top twenty for Sato since 2014 when he finished outside the top twenty in five races. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing won on this day in 2001 with Kenny Bräck at Chicago Motor Speedway. The Swede led 59 laps, including the final 19 laps after a pass on Scott Dixon, who would finish fourth. Tony Kanaan started on pole position that day.

Scott Dixon will start ninth in his 300th start. This is only the third time Dixon has not made the Fast Six at Mid-Ohio. This will be the 13th time Dixon has started ninth in his career. Only twice has he finished on the podium from ninth on the grid. He won at Sonoma in 2015 from ninth, which won him the championship and he finished third from ninth in this year's Indianapolis 500. Dixon is going for his fourth victory of the season. He has not had that many victories in a season since 2013. He has won at least four races in a season four times and has finished first or second in the championship every one of those seasons. James Hinchcliffe was the fastest in round two but immediately after he set the fastest time he spun in the carousel and brought out a red flag, deleting his two fastest laps and knocking him to tenth on the grid. Hinchcliffe has finished in the top five in the last two races. It is only the fourth time he has had two consecutive top five finishes and the first time he has done it since the final two races of the 2013 season. The Canadian has never had three consecutive top five finishes in his IndyCar career.

Ed Jones will start 11th, four positions better than his starting spot last year in this race. Jones is 13th in the championship and his average finish this season is 13th. Zach Veach rounds out row six. Veach hails from Stockdale, Ohio, a town about two and a half hours south of Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Baseball Hall of Famer Branch Rickey was born in Stockdale, Ohio. Rickey is most remembered for signing Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Rickey died on December 9, 1965, 29 years to the day of Veach's birth.

Marco Andretti missed out on advancing to round two by 0.0009 seconds and he will start 13th. Andretti has finished in the top five in the 13th race of the season only twice and they were the first two seasons of his career when he won at Sonoma in 2006 in an Andretti 1-2 finish ahead of Dario Franchitti and he finished second in 2007 at Michigan in an Andretti 1-2 finish behind Tony Kanaan. Conor Daly starts 14th in his second race for Harding Racing. Daly is one of 11 drivers entered in this race that has led before at Mid-Ohio in an IndyCar race. He led 22 laps in the 2016 race. All 71 laps led in Daly's career have come on road or street courses. Charlie Kimball rounds out the top fifteen. Kimball has four top ten finishes this season and he is one top ten finish away from matching his top ten finish total from 2017. He picked up his fifth top ten finish in the penultimate race last year at Watkins Glen. Jordan King will start outside the top fifteen for the third time this season as he will roll off from 16th. King's most recent podium finish came 701 days ago on August 27, 2016 at Spa-Francorchamps in the GP2 Series. Pierre Gasly won that race. King's most recent victory occurred 749 days ago on July 10, 2016 in the GP2 sprint race at Silverstone.

Simon Pagenaud will start 17th, his worst starting position of the season. Pagenaud had made it out of the first round of qualifying five times in seven Mid-Ohio appearances. Spencer Pigot joins Pagenaud on row seven. He started 18th at Iowa and finished second three weeks ago. Pigot is 14th in the championship. Only once has he been better than 14th in the championship and that was after Long Beach last season when he was 13th in the championship. Tony Kanaan's 19th starting position is the sixth time he has started outside the top fifteen in the last nine Mid-Ohio races. This will be Kanaan's 17th Mid-Ohio start, tying him with Al Unser, Jr. for second most all-time. This is the track Kanaan has the most starts at without a podium finish. His best finish at Mid-Ohio was fourth in 2007. Jack Harvey rounds out the top twenty. Harvey is looking to give Ohio-based Meyer Shank Racing its first Mid-Ohio victory. The best finish for the team in sports cars is second. John Pew and Oswaldo Negri, Jr. finished second overall in the 2010 Grand-Am race to the Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas of Chip Ganassi Racing and earlier this year the team was the runner-up finisher in the GTD class with Katherine Legge and Álvaro Parente finishing behind Kyle Marcelli and Dominik Baumann of 3GT Racing.

Matheus Leist and Pietro Fittipaldi form an all-Brazilian row eleven. Leist is the other driver to have started every race and not finish in the top ten this season. Leist has finished on the lead lap in every natural-terrain road course race this season. Fittipaldi's grandfather Emerson won at Mid-Ohio three times, in 1988, 1992 and 1993. Fittipaldi is currently dead last in the championship with seven points but he will at least jump from 39th to tied for 34th. Rene Binder will start 23rd with Sébastien Bourdais starting 24th after the Frenchman brought out a red flag on his first lap in round one of qualifying. Binder's best finish through five starts is 16th at Long Beach. Bourdais has not finished in the top five in the last five races, his longest drought since he went ten races between top five finishes from Milwaukee in 2015 to the first Belle Isle race in 2016. He finished second at Mid-Ohio in 2014 after he started on pole position. Bourdais' last four victories have come from starting positions outside the top ten after his first 33 victories all came from top ten starting positions.

CNBC's coverage of the Honda Indy 200 from Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:35 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 90 laps. NBCSN will have encore coverage after the NASCAR Cup race from Pocono at 6:30 p.m. ET.