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| Patricio O'Ward powers to first pole position of 2021 |
Patricio O'Ward took the first pole position of the 2021 IndyCar season with a lap of 65.8479 seconds around Barber Motorsports Park. It is O'Ward second career pole position. He started on pole position for the second Road America race last year. He has won four races at Barber in Road to Indy competition. O'Ward could become the first driver to get his first career victory in a season opener since James Hinchcliffe in 2013. O'Ward will be making his 23rd start this weekend. Two drivers have picked up their first career victories in their 23rd starts, Greg Moore at Milwaukee in 1997 and Jaques Lazier at Chicagoland in 2001.
Alexander Rossi was 0.0698 seconds off O'Ward and will start second. This is Rossi's best starting position at Barber. He has finished outside the top ten in three of five season openers in his IndyCar career. In each season where he was outside the top ten in the season opener, he did not get a top ten finish until at least the third race of the season. In the two seasons he opened with a top ten finish, he had at least three consecutive top ten results to start the season.
Álex Palou matches his career best starting position of third as the Spaniard was 0.2059 seconds off O'Ward. Palou is the fourth driver to pilot the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing entry since the start of the 2014 season. In that time, the #10 Ganassi car has finished ahead of Scott Dixon only once in a season opener. That was in 2015 when Tony Kanaan was third at St. Petersburg and Dixon was 15th.
For only the third time in his career, Will Power starts off the front row at Barber, as the Australian will start fourth. Power has finished outside the top ten in his last three Barber starts after having seven consecutive top five finishes at the track. Power was the top Penske finish only three races in 2021, when he was second in the first Road America races and his victories at Mid-Ohio and the second Harvest Grand Prix race.
Scott Dixon starts his title defense from fifth starting position. Dixon has made the Fast Six in all 11 Barber races. IndyCar has had two drivers win consecutive season openers in the last seven seasons, but both of those came in St. Petersburg. Juan Pablo Montoya swept the Florida races in 2015 and 2016, and Sébastien Bourdais followed in 2017 and 2018. Scott Dixon could become the first driver to win consecutive season openers but at different venues since Paul Tracy won the 2003 CART season opener at St. Petersburg and the 2004 Champ Car season opener at Long Beach. Dixon enters 2021 with ten consecutive top ten finishes.
Marcus Ericsson made the Fast Six for the first time in his career and he will start sixth. Ericsson had nine top ten finishes last year, tied for the fifth most in IndyCar with Graham Rahal, and only behind the top four in the championship, Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden, Colton Herta and Patricio O'Ward. Ericsson's longest stretch without a top ten finish in 2020 was two races. Despite Ericsson's track record, he was only the top Ganassi finisher once last year, fifth in the second Mid-Ohio race.
Romain Grosjean will make his IndyCar debut from seventh on the grid. Grosjean started 14th in his Formula One debut at Valencia in 2009. Grosjean looks to become the first driver to win in the #51 since Adrián Fernández won the 2003 CART race at Portland. Grosjean makes his debut one day after his 35th birthday. Grosjean retired from the season opener on seven of nine occasions in Formula One. He was tenth in the 2013 Australian Grand Prix and he scored a famous sixth in the 2016 Australian Grand Prix, Haas F1's debut race.
Josef Newgarden starts eighth at Barber. Newgarden won from eighth in the 2020 season finale at St. Petersburg. Barber is Josef Newgarden's third best track with at least three starts in terms of average finish at 5.5. Only Pocono and Phoenix are lower. It is the road course where he has led the most in his career with 133 laps led. He and teammate Will Power are the only two drivers with over 100 laps led at Barber. Power has led 208 circuits around the 2.3-mile road course.
Colton Herta starts ninth. The worst starting position for a Barber winner was ninth with Will Power in 2012. Herta's lone IndyCar start at Barber was cut short with fuel pressure issues. It was the location of his second Indy Lights victory in 2017. No driver has won in Indy Lights and IndyCar at Barber. Herta, Ed Jones and Patricio O'Ward could all become the first to accomplish that this weekend.
Conor Daly rounds out the top ten. Daly has started and finished in the top ten only twice in his career. His first top ten finish was from tenth to sixth in the second Belle Isle race in 2015. He was eighth after starting on pole position last year in the first Iowa race. This will be the eighth IndyCar season Conor Daly has participated in, but Barber will be only the fourth season opener he has contested. He ran at St. Petersburg in 2016 and 2017. Last year, he ended up finishing sixth at Texas, his best finish of the 2020 season.
Jack Harvey will start 11th. Harvey turned 28 years old on Friday. Meyer Shank Racing had four podium finishes at Barber Motorsports Park in the Grand-Am Sports Car Series, those coming in 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Harvey was 13th in his first IndyCar start at Barber in 2019 after starting 12th.
Scott McLaughlin makes his second IndyCar start from 12th on the grid. McLaughlin was born on June 10, 1993, three days before Danny Sullivan picked up his 17th and final IndyCar victory at Belle Isle driving for Galles Racing. In McLaughlin's lifetime, only four drivers have won IndyCar races in car #3, Al Unser, Jr., Paul Tracy, Robbie Buhl and Hélio Castroneves.
Ed Jones is back with Dale Coyne Racing and Jones will make his IndyCar return from 13th on the grid, falling 0.0344 seconds shy of advancing from round one. In his rookie season for the team in 2017, Jones was third in the Indianapolis 500 and he had five top ten finishes with the team. He did fail to pick up a top ten finish in his final seven starts with Dale Coyne Racing.
After the red flag prematurely ended group two's session, Rinus VeeKay was 0.0488 seconds off advancing from round two and he will start 14th. VeeKay was third and fourth in his two U.S. F2000 starts at Barber and he was fifth and fourth in Pro Mazda at the track. Four of VeeKay's five top ten finishes in 2020 came at two tracks, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and Gateway. VeeKay is racing with a broken thumb, which he suffered last week in testing at Indianapolis.
Simon Pagenaud starts the 2021 season from 15th starting position. Pagenaud failed to start in the top ten in ten races last year, including in the final three races. He did not have a top five finish in the last eight races of 2020. It is tied for his longest drought without a top five finish since he opened the 2018 season without a top five finish in the first eight races of that season. However, he did have five top ten finishes in that eight-race span Pagenaud has never won a season opener, but he has finished runner-up in three of the last five.
Sébastien Bourdais makes it an all-French row eight. Bourdais picked up a fourth-place finish in the St. Petersburg season finale last October. It was A.J. Foyt Racing's only top five finish of the season. Foyt has not had top five finishes in consecutive races since 2013 when Takuma Sato won Long Beach and was then second in São Paulo. Foyt's one and only top ten finish at Barber came in 2012 when Mike Conway finished seventh.
For the fourth time, Ryan Hunter-Reay starts a Barber race from row nine, as the American will roll off from 17th. Hunter-Reay has started 223 consecutive IndyCar races, the fourth longest streak in IndyCar history and the second longest among active drivers. He is 11th all-time in starts. If he starts 16 races this year, he will move into tenth all-time.
Graham Rahal starts 18th. Rahal has only two top ten finishes in season openers in his IndyCar career. He was seventh at St. Petersburg in 2009 and second at St. Petersburg in 2018. His average finish in season openers is 12.9167. This is the sixth time he has started outside the top ten at Barber. Only once he has finished in the top ten when starting outside the top ten at this track. He went from 15th to seventh in 2018.
Takuma Sato is looking to win two consecutive Barber races, but Sato starts 19th. This is the ninth time Sato has started outside the top ten at Barber. The only track Sato has won at multiple times in his IndyCar career is Indianapolis.
Max Chilton rounds out the top twenty. Chilton has not had a top ten finish in his last 38 IndyCar starts. He went 35 races in his Formula One career without a top ten finish. Chilton was also unable to participate in the final three races of the 2014 Formula One season due to Marussia F1 entire administration. He has finished outside the top twenty in three of four Barber starts.
Jimmie Johnson will make his IndyCar debut from 21st starting position. In his NASCAR Cup Series debut, he started 15th at Charlotte in October 2001, but he finished 39th. Johnson has made 38 starts in the state of Alabama in the NASCAR Cup Series, all of those coming at Talladega. He won at the track in 2006 and 2011 with that 2011 victory coming ten years and one day prior to his IndyCar debut at Barber. He had only two top ten finishes in his last 11 Talladega starts.
Felix Rosenqvist spun on his final qualifying lap, bringing out the red flag and he will start 22nd. In 31 races with Chip Ganassi Racing, Felix Rosenqvist was the top Ganassi finisher in seven races. In only two of those races did Scott Dixon finish in the top ten. Patricio O'Ward was the top Arrow McLaren SP finisher in ten of 14 races last year.
Dalton Kellett starts 23rd. Kellett did not finish on the lead lap in any of his eight IndyCar starts last year. On average, 4.4 cars take the checkered flag off the lead lap at Barber. The 2010 race had 12 cars finish a lap down but in 2015 and 2017 all starters finished the race with only two finishing a lap down.
After getting into the barrier, James Hinchcliffe will start 24th, his worst starting position at Barber. This is only the fifth time he has started outside the top twenty in his IndyCar career. Hinchcliffe has three top ten finishes at Barber, tied for third most all-time at the track. However, he has only one top five finish, his third-place result in 2018. He has only led four laps at the track, two of which came in 2019. Prior to this qualifying sessions, Barber was Hinchcliffe's third best track in terms of qualifying average with a minimum of three starts. His average starting position was 7.2, behind only Houston and São Paulo. After this result, it has shot up to 8.9, knocking it down to his seventh best track.
NBC's coverage of the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama will begin at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:42 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 90 laps.
