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| Patricio O'Ward leads a tight field into IndyCar's second IMS road course race |
Patricio O'Ward took his third pole position of the season, as a lap of 70.7147 seconds secured the Mexican driver the top spot for the Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. O'Ward led an incredibly tight qualifying session as 0.0484 seconds covered the top five cars. O'Ward has finished in the top five every time he has started on pole position in his IndyCar career. This is his first top five start since his pole position for the first Belle Isle race. O'Ward had a top ten finish streak snapped at five races after his 13th-place finish at Nashville. O'Ward has not had consecutive finishes outside the top ten during his time with Arrow McLaren SP.
Will Power was 0.0067 seconds off his first pole position of the season. Instead, Power will have to settle for second, his first front row start of 2021. Power has only won three times from second on the grid in his career, Toronto 2010, Edmonton 2011, and Portland 2019. Power is on pace for his worst average finish since the 2008 IndyCar season. He is averaging a 13.273. In 2008, he averaged a 14.8. He has led over 100 laps in 12 consecutive seasons. He currently has only 42 laps led
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Romain Grosjean nearly won the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, his third career IndyCar start, and the Frenchman will start third for his second IMS road course start, 0.0271 seconds off pole position. Grosjean will be making his ninth IndyCar start this weekend. Six drivers have had their first career IndyCar victory in their ninth career start. Those drivers are Tom Alley, Harry Hartz, Billy Arnold, Alex Zanardi, Sam Hornish, Jr., and Carlos Huertas, who won driving for Dale Coyne Racing.
Christian Lundgaard will become the fourth Danish driver in IndyCar history and Lundgaard will start fourth on his IndyCar debut. Lundgaard was 0.0286 seconds off pole position. He is the second Danish driver to compete this season after Kevin Magnussen ran at Road America. This is the first IndyCar season to feature multiple Danish drivers. This is the best starting position for a Dane in IndyCar history. The previous best was eighth. Ronnie Bremer started eighth for his Champ Car debut at Long Beach in 2005. Lundgaard makes his IndyCar debut at only 20 years and 22 days old, the 22nd youngest driver in IndyCar history. A victory would make him the fourth youngest winner in IndyCar history.
Colton Herta was 0.0484 seconds off O'Ward's top time and Herta will start fifth. This qualifying result increases Herta's average qualifying position to 3.8, the best in IndyCar. However, his average finish is 11.909, giving Herta a difference of 8.109. He has finished better than his starting position only once this season, going from tenth to fifth in the second Texas race. He has finished equal to his starting position twice. He won from pole position at St. Petersburg and started and finished second at Road America.
Álex Palou was a little over a tenth off pole position, 0.1143 seconds to be specific, and Palou will start sixth. Palou has finished better than his starting position in seven consecutive races and he has four consecutive top ten finishes. Palou has been the top finishing Ganassi driver in five of 11 races this season. Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson have each been the top Ganassi finisher in three races.
Jack Harvey qualified seventh. Harvey has never started worse than seventh on the IMS road course. Harvey will be making his 45th career start this weekend. Only two drivers have had a first career victory come in a 45th career start. Alex Barron did it at Nashville in 2002 and Charlie Kimball did it at Mid-Ohio in 2013.
Conor Daly ended up eighth, his fifth top ten start of the season. Daly has been the top Ed Carpenter Racing finisher in three of the last four races, but he has yet to finish in the top ten with ECR. Only twice has Daly started and finished in the top ten. He started tenth and finished sixth for the second Belle Isle race in 2015, Daly's fifth career IndyCar start, and he went from pole position to eighth in the first Iowa race last year.
Rinus VeeKay is right behind his ECR teammate in ninth. VeeKay has finished outside the top ten in his last three starts. The only time he has not had a top ten finish in four consecutive starts was a five-race drought from the first Road America race through the Indianapolis 500 last year. He has a victory, two podium finishes and three top five finishes in four IMS road course starts.
Alexander Rossi topped his round one qualifying group, but he was tenth in round two. Rossi has finished in the top five in three of eight IMS road course starts and in the top ten on six occasions. He has only led two laps this season and he has only led two laps in his career on the IMS road course.
Marcus Ericsson was lifted into the final round of qualifying after fellow Swede Felix Rosenqvist was penalized for ignoring a local yellow flag. Ericsson only ended up 11th on the grid. Ericsson led a Ganassi 1-2 finish at Nashville last week. It was Ganassi's first 1-2 finish since Scott Dixon won ahead of Felix Rosenqvist at Mid-Ohio in 2019. The last time a team had consecutive 1-2 finishes was Team Penske in 2017 at Mid-Ohio and Pocono. The last time Ganassi had consecutive 1-2 finish was in 2012 with the Indianapolis 500 and Belle Isle.
Simon Pagenaud rounded out the top twelve. Pagenaud could match his longest top ten finish drought in this race. He has not finished in the top ten in the last three races. A four-race drought would match last year's run from the Indianapolis 500, through the Gateway doubleheader and the first Mid-Ohio race. The only other time Pagenaud has gone three consecutive races without a top ten result was in 2015 from the second Belle Isle race through Texas and Toronto.
Ryan Hunter-Reay missed out on the second round of qualifying by 0.0876 seconds and Hunter-Reay will start 13th. has not had consecutive top five finishes since the Mid-Ohio doubleheader last year when he finished fifth and third. It has been 42 starts since Hunter-Reay's most recent victory at the 2018 season finale at Sonoma.
Sébastien Bourdais starts 14th. Bourdais only completed five laps in Nashville and finished 27th, his worst finish on a street course since he was 28th at Baltimore in 2011. Outside of that Baltimore result, Bourdais' three other finishes worse than 27th all came in the Indianapolis 500. Nashville was just the sixth time in 219 starts Bourdais completed five laps or fewer in a race, and the second time in 2021.
Takuma Sato will start 15th. Sato has yet to start a race in the top ten this season and he has started outside the top ten in now 17 consecutive races going back to last season. His last top ten start was his pole position for the second Gateway race.
Graham Rahal's qualifying woes continue, with the Ohioan ending up 16th, completing an all-Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing row eight. Rahal has not started in the top five since the second Road America race last year, 21 races ago. This is the 15th time he has started outside the top ten since his most recent top five start.
Ed Jones is coming off his best finish of the season at Nashville in sixth from 26th on the grid. Jones isn't starting that far back, but he is still rolling off from 17th, his fourth consecutive start outside the top ten. Nashville was his best finish in 19 starts, dating back to a sixth-place result in the 2019 Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
Max Chilton rolls off from 18th. Chilton missed the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May due to a visa issue preventing him from entering the country. Carlin did not field car that weekend. Chilton's best finish on the IMS road course was seventh in the 2017 Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
Felix Rosenqvist's penalty for ignoring a local yellow kept him from advancing to round two and Rosenqvist will start 19th. Rosenqvist is looking for consecutive top ten finishes for the first time since he had three consecutive top ten finishes last year between the Gateway doubleheader and Mid-Ohio. Rosenqvist's most recent top five finish was fifth in the first Harvest Grand Prix race last year on the IMS road course.
Josef Newgarden missed out on the second round of qualifying and he was seventh in his qualifying group, but Newgarden has a six-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change after Nashville and now he will have to start 20th, his worst starting position since starting 21st for the Indianapolis 500. Newgarden had started on the front row in fourth consecutive races. Newgarden has won the 11th race of the season in three of the last four years, including last year on the IMS road course, the first Harvest Grand Prix race.
Scott McLaughlin is returning to the site of his most recent top ten finish, but McLaughlin will have to work his way up from 21st in this race. He was eighth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May after starting fifth, his best starting position of the season. This is the fourth time McLaughlin has started outside the top twenty this season.
Jimmie Johnson will join his fellow rookie on row 11. Johnson has yet to start in the top twenty this season. He was a lap down in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May. Johnson has finished outside the top twenty in his last seven starts.
Hélio Castroneves has his worst starting position of the season in 23rd. Castroneves has been the top Meyer Shank Racing finisher in each of his two starts this season Castroneves had finished in the top six in his first five IMS road course starts, but he has finished 20th or worse in his last three starts at the track.
James Hinchcliffe ended up 24th in qualifying, two positions worse than the starting position Hinchcliffe had for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May. Hinchcliffe has never had consecutive podium finishes in his IndyCar career. Nashville was his 18th podium finish. The last time he had consecutive top five finishes was 2018 when he won at Iowa and then was fourth at Toronto.
RC Enerson is back for what will be his fifth career IndyCar start, and Enerson's fifth start will be from 25th on the grid. Top Gun Racing is the third different team Enerson has driven for in his IndyCar career.
Scott Dixon spun on his final qualifying lap and brought out a local yellow. Dixon lost his fastest lap, and he will have to start 26th. This is his worst starting position since starting 26th at Long Beach in 2013. He ended up finishing 11th in that race. Dixon is the last driver standing to have completed every lap this season. He has finished on the lead lap of 26 consecutive races. The last time he finished off the lead lap was at Portland in 2019 when an electrical issue put him three laps down.
Cody Ware qualified 27th for the second consecutive race. Ware was disqualified from the Nashville race for failure to participate at competitive speed. He has finished 19th and 20th in his first two IndyCar starts.
Dalton Kellett rounds out the grid in 28th. The furthest back an IndyCar winner has started is 28th. Kellett is one of three drivers to start all 11 race this season and not have completed 1,000 laps. Kellett has completed only 916 laps. Ed Jones has completed 958 laps and Sébastien Bourdais has the fewest laps completed of 100% participants with only 808 laps. Kellett needs to complete at least 84 of 85 laps this weekend to reach 1,000 laps.
NBCSN's coverage of the Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course will begin at 12:30 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 12:45 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 85 laps.
