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| In a frenetic qualifying session, Takuma Sato took pole position at Barber |
This is Rahal's best starting position at Barber. His previous best was sixth in 2016. Last year was the first season Graham Rahal had two top five finishes in the first three races of the season and it left him third in the championship. It was the first time Rahal has been in the top five of the championship after the first three races. Rahal enters Barber fifth in the championship. This is the sixth time Rahal has started second in his career and, like Sato on pole position, Rahal's best finish from second on the grid was fourth at Milwaukee in 2009.
Scott Dixon will start third, matching his career best starting position at Barber. This is the third time Dixon has started third in this race. The previous two times he went on to finish second. Chip Ganassi Racing has never won at Barber Motorsports Park. The only tracks where Ganassi took ten times or more to score a first victory at are Vancouver, which took ten attempts, and Phoenix, which took 11 attempts. Ganassi has won at 39 different circuits in IndyCar. Dixon has won from third position six times in his career; including three of the last four times he has started third. James Hinchcliffe joins Dixon on row two. This is the eighth time in nine Barber appearances Hinchcliffe has qualified in the top ten and five of those have been Fast Six appearances. Hinchcliffe has finished outside the top ten in six of the last seven races, the worst seven-race stretch of his career.
Will Power failed to make it to the final round of qualifying for the second time in his career at Barber Motorsports Park and Power will start seventh for the first time since last year's season finale at Sonoma. The only other time Power did not make the Fast Six at Barber he started ninth and won the race. Power has not had three consecutive pole positions since Mid-Ohio, Sonoma and Baltimore in 2012. This is the first time Team Penske has not had a car make the Fast Six session since Long Beach in 2014. Like Team Penske, no Andretti Autosport entry made it to the Fast Six and Alexander Rossi was the top of the four Andretti cars, joining Power on row four. This qualifying results matching Rossi's best Barber starting position, which came last year. Rossi has not had a podium finish in his last four starts. This is the longest stretch without a podium finish in his career since he went 21 races from the 2016 Indianapolis 500 and Toronto 2017. Five of Rossi's 12 career podium finishes have come when starting outside the top five. He has twice finished on the podium from eighth on the grid, as he finished second at Toronto from eighth in 2017 and third last year at Texas from eighth.
American rookies swept row five with Colton Herta starting ninth, after advancing to the second round of qualifying for the third consecutive race, and Santino Ferrucci starting tenth, a career best starting position for the Nutmegger. Herta could become the first driver to pick up his first two victories in consecutive races since A.J. Allmendinger picked up his first three victories in three consecutive races at Portland, Cleveland and Toronto in 2006. Ferrucci has finished 20th or worse in four of his first six starts. He has finished on the lead lap in his last three starts after not finishing on the lead lap in his first three starts.
Ryan Hunter-Reay had his streak of top ten starts snapped at 13 races and the American will start 11th. Hunter-Reay has not finished in the top five in the third race of the season since he won at Barber in 2014. His only other top five finish in the third race of a season was his victory at Milwaukee in 2004. Jack Harvey made it to the second round of qualifying for the second time in three races and he will start 12th. This is Harvey's first time racing at Barber since 2015 in Indy Lights. He was the runner-up finisher in both those races. He also finished third and fifth in 2014 at the track in Indy Lights.
Marco Andretti will start 13th after missing round two by 0.0345 seconds. Andretti enters Barber seventh in the championship. Only twice has Andretti been better than seventh in the championship after three races. In 2013, Andretti was fourth in the championship after three races and, in 2014, he was sixth in the championship after three races. Simon Pagenaud joins Andretti on row seven, the first time he has started outside the top ten at Barber since 2013. Pagenaud has only won multiple times at two tracks and both are natural-terrain road courses, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and Sonoma. Barber could become the third different track with multiple victories for Pagenaud; however, the Frenchman has never won a race when starting outside the top ten in his IndyCar career.
Matheus Leist starts 15th. This is the first time Leist has started in the top fifteen in consecutive races in his IndyCar career. Leist has finished outside the top fifteen in ten of his 19 career starts but Barber is the location of his best career finish on a natural-terrain road course, a 12th place finish. Josef Newgarden could become the 23rd driver in IndyCar history with three consecutive victories at a racetrack but he will have to do it from 16th on the grid, his worst starting position at Barber since he started 22nd in 2013. The last driver to accomplish three consecutive victories at a track was Will Power at São Paulo in 2010-12. The last American driver to accomplish it was Al Unser, Jr. at Vancouver from 1993-95. Newgarden enters this race with podium finishes in his last two starts. The only other time he had consecutive podium finishes came in 2017 when he had back-to-back podium finishes at Long Beach and Barber and he had four consecutive podium finishes at Iowa, Mid-Ohio, Pocono and Gateway, three victories and a runner-up finish.
Felix Rosenqvist will make his Barber IndyCar debut from 17th on the grid. Rosenqvist made two starts at Barber in Indy Lights in 2016. He was involved in an accident in the first race on lap four and he finished 14th, three laps down after starting seventh. He started sixth and finished eighth in the second race. Patricio O'Ward makes it an all-rookie row nine, as O'Ward will start 18th, the worst starting position of his IndyCar career. O'Ward could become the first driver to start a career with three consecutive top ten finishes since Tony Renna in 2002 when he finished tenth at Nashville, fourth at Michigan and seventh at Kentucky.
Tony Kanaan starts 19th. Kanaan has now started outside the top ten in 11 consecutive races and he had started outside the top twenty in three of the previous four races. While he has not finished in the top ten, Kanaan has finished in the top fifteen in five consecutive races. Marcus Ericsson rounds out the top twenty and he is still looking for his first top ten finish in IndyCar. Since Schmidt Peterson Motorsports returned to full-time IndyCar competition in 2011, each of the three drivers to make their debuts with the team have scored a top ten finish in one of the first two races. Tristan Vautier finished tenth in his second career start at Barber in 2013, Mikhail Aleshin finished sixth at Long Beach in 2014 and last year, Robert Wickens was the runner-up finisher in the second race at Phoenix.
Former Carlin Indy Lights teammates Ed Jones and Max Chilton will start on row 11. Barber was tied for third best in average starting position for Ed Jones at 11.5 before this session, as Jones had started 11th and 12th in his first two appearances at the track. Barber is is tied for Jones' third worst in average finish at 18.0. Chilton has not finished in the top ten in the last 20 races and he his three finishes at Barber are 21st, 13th and 22nd. He has finished off the lead lap in 14 of those races. He had started no worse than 13th in his first three trips at Barber.
Zach Veach is on the last row of the grid in 23rd, his worst starting position at Barber. This is the first track Veach has visited for three times in his IndyCar career. He improved his finishing position from 19th to 13th last year. Ben Hanley rounds out the field in 24th, 12 positions off where he started on debut last month at St. Petersburg. Hanley ran the FIA World Endurance Championship's 1000 Miles of Sebring in the interim from St. Petersburg to Barber. Unfortunately, he retired from that event after 143 of 253 laps.
NBCSN's coverage of the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama begins at 4:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 4:15 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 90 laps.
