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| Colton Herta is off to a flying start in Nashville |
Colton Herta picked up pole position for the inaugural Music City Grand Prix with a lap at 73.6835 seconds in the final round of qualifying. Herta took pole position by 0.5492 seconds over Scott Dixon and Herta has been on top of every session this weekend. This is the fourth consecutive race he has started on the front row and the sixth race overall he has started from row one. Herta has finished in the top five of all three street course races this season, including a dominant victory form pole position at St. Petersburg, where he led 97 of 100 laps. Street courses have been Herta's saving grace this season. The only non-street course race he has finished in the top ten was fifth in the second Texas race. Outside of St. Petersburg, Herta has led only 18 laps this season.
Scott Dixon starts second; his third front row start of the season. Dixon has won the 11th race of the season three times in his career, including the 2007 Nashville Superspeedway race, which Dixon won from pole position with 105 of 200 laps led. The only time Dixon has won the inaugural race on a circuit was the one and only race on the Motegi road course in 2011 after the race was moved from the oval due to the damage from the Tōhoku earthquake. While he has not won many inaugural races, Dixon did win the returning races at Watkins Glen (twice), Mid-Ohio, Pocono, Belle Isle, Houston, Phoenix, and he won in his first start at Homestead, Pikes Peak, Richmond and Edmonton.
Alexander Rossi is coming off his first top five finish of the season and he will start third. After opening the season with only one top ten start in the first five races, Nashville is Rossi's sixth consecutive top ten start. He has finished third and second in the 11th race of the season the last two years. He has only led two laps this season, both in the first Belle Isle race. Rossi's last six victories have come from him starting third or better. His only victory from third was Pocono 2018.
Felix Rosenqvist scored his best starting position of the season in fourth. This is Rosenqvist's first top ten start of the season and first top five start since the second Mid-Ohio race last year. He has finished outside the top twenty in his last three starts and outside the top fifteen in his last five starts. Rosenqvist is still looking for his first top ten finish of the season. He had four top ten finishes in five street course races in 2019.
Romain Grosjean qualified fifth, the fourth time the Frenchman has started in the top five this season and the sixth time he has started in the top ten. Only once has Grosjean finished better than his starting position when starting in the top ten. He went from seventh to fifth at Road America. He is looking for his third consecutive top ten finish, but his worst three finishes this season were all on street course races.
Jack Harvey continues his strong qualifying performances, as the Briton will start sixth for this race. Harvey has finished outside the top fifteen in the last seven races. He has started outside the top ten in four of those and in the top five of the other three.
Simon Pagenaud starts seventh. Pagenaud was third at St. Petersburg and that made it the ninth season in the last ten where Pagenaud has picked up at least one podium result on a street course. The problem is Pagenaud has not had multiple top five finishes on a street course since 2017 when he had four top five finishes in six street course races.
Patricio O'Ward joins Pagenaud on row four. O'Ward has finished on the podium in three of the last four street course races and he won the most recent street course race at Belle Isle. The only lap O'Ward failed to finish this season was also on a street course. He was a lap down in 19th at St. Petersburg.
A six-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change knocked Álex Palou to ninth on the grid after he ended up third in qualifying. This was Palou's second grid penalty of the season. His first was in the first Belle Isle race. He is the only driver to have served a grid penalty this season. Palou's worst two finishes this season were on street courses. He was a lap down at St. Petersburg in 17th and 15th in the first Belle Isle race. Palou did bounce back with a third-place finish in the second Belle Isle race. He has three consecutive podium finishes and five podium finishes in the last seven races.
James Hinchcliffe remains in search of his first top ten finishes of the season, and he rounds out the top ten on the starting grid, the second consecutive race Hinchcliffe has started in the top ten after starting no better than 12th in the first nine races. The good news is Hinchcliffe has finished in the top ten of the 11th race of the season the last four years he participated in it. One of those was his victory at Iowa in 2018.
Will Power has not won a street course race since the second Belle Isle race in 2016 and he will try to end that drought from 11th on the grid. He has won the 11th race of the season three times in his career, but all of those were in Canada, two at Edmonton and one at Toronto. However, every time Power was on the podium in the 11th races of a season, those races were in Canada. On top of his three victories, he had a second and a third at Edmonton.
Josef Newgarden looks to become a hometown winner, but after he clattered the barrier on his final qualifying lap in round two, Newgarden will have to start 12th. He was set to advance to the Fast Six prior to his incident. Newgarden is from Hendersonville, Tennessee, 18 miles northeast of Nashville. Newgarden's Mid-Ohio victory made him the leading American in race victories, breaking a tie with Ryan Hunter-Reay and now he is one victory away from the 20-victory milestone.
Graham Rahal ended up 13th on the grid. Rahal went from 13th to fifth in the first Texas race this season. His last victory on a street course, the second Belle Isle race in 2017. In the 15 street course races since that victory, Rahal has one podium finish, six top five finishes and 11 top ten finishes.
Ryan Hunter-Reay joins Rahal on row seven after missing out on advancing to round two by 0.1254 seconds. Hunter-Reay has not had a top five finish in his last 11 starts, his longest drought since he went12 races between the final three races of 2010 and first nine races of 2011. The longest top five drought in his career was 27 starts from the 2004 Champ Car finale at Mexico City to the 2008 Richmond race. In-between that drought, he did not participate in either IndyCar or Champ Car during the 2006 season.
Hélio Castroneves is back for his second start of the IndyCar season, and he will start 15th. It is Castroneves' first street course start since Toronto in 2017. His last podium finish on a street course was third at Long Beach in 2016 and his last street course victory was the second Belle Isle race in 2014.
Sébastien Bourdais will have to work his way forward from 16th on the grid. Bourdais has not picked up a top ten finish in his last eight starts, his longest drought since he went 13 races between his final two starts in 2012 and the first 11 races of 2013.
Santino Ferrucci starts 17th. Ferrucci has finished in the top ten in all four of his starts this season, more top ten finishes than Scott McLaughlin, Sébastien Bourdais, Jack Harvey, Ryan Hunter-Reay, James Hinchcliffe and Conor Daly. This is Ferrucci's longest stretch of consecutive top ten finishes and he had only five top ten finishes all of last season. While the starting position looks daunting, Ferrucci has started outside the top twenty in three races this season.
Marcus Ericsson is starting 18th for the second time in three races. Ericsson enters Nashville off the back of four consecutive top ten finishes, which included his first career victory at Belle Isle and his runner-up finish at Mid-Ohio. A top ten result would match his longest top ten streak. He had five consecutive top ten finishes last year.
Dalton Kellett will have his best starting position of the season in 19th. Kellett has finished better than his starting position in eight of ten races with one equal finish and one finish worse than his starting spot, and that was after his engine failure at Road America.
Car #20 will start 20th, as that is where Conor Daly ended up after qualifying. Daly has not finished in the top ten on a street course since he was sixth in the second Belle Isle race in 2016. Daly has been the top Ed Carpenter Racing finisher in two of the last three races.
Max Chilton ended up 21st in qualifying. Chilton's only top ten finish on a street course was seventh at Toronto in 2017. He has finished outside the top twenty in all three street course races this season.
Rinus VeeKay starts 22nd, his worst starting position of the season. VeeKay's prior worst was 14th at Barber. He has been in the top ten of two of three street course races this season, including a runner-up result in the first Belle Isle race. Five of his 16 Road to Indy victories came on street courses.
With a qualifying effort of 23rd, this is the fifth time in the last six races Scott McLaughlin has started outside the top fifteen. McLaughlin opened the season with three top ten finishes in the first five races and being ninth in the championship. Since then, he has not finished in the top ten of his last five starts and he has dropped to 13th in the championship.
Takuma Sato fell to 24th on the starting grid and he has yet to start in the top ten this season. This will be Sato's fifth consecutive race and seventh time in 11 races he has started outside the top fifteen. Despite the qualifying results, Sato has completed 1,209 of 1,210 laps this season. He has completed over 90% of the laps in a season only once in his IndyCar career. That was 2015 when he completed 2,139 of 2,232 laps, 95.8%.
Jimmie Johnson slammed the wall on his first qualifying lap in round one and that ensured him 25th on the grid. Johnson is still looking for his first lead lap finish of the season. The good news is he has only finished a lap down in his last three starts and in his last four starts where he has taken the checkered flag. He has still not finished last in an IndyCar race.
Ed Jones is 26th on the grid, his worst starting position on a road/street course in IndyCar. Jones has won the intra-team Dale Coyne Racing battle in three of ten races this season. Two of those were the Belle Isle races, the only times he has finished ahead of Romain Grosjean.
Cody Ware is back for his second start of the IndyCar season, and he rounds out the grid in 27th. Ware was just within 105% of the top time in his qualifying group with a lap at 78.0928 seconds. Ware was 19th at Road America, a lead lap finish. Ware is missing the Watkins Glen NASCAR Cup race to run Nashville. Coincidentally, he missed the Nashville Cup race to make his IndyCar debut at Road America.
NBCSN's coverage of the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix begins at 5:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 5:45 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 80 laps.
