Will Power won his record-tying 67th career pole position on Friday afternoon at Gateway Motorsports Park with a two-lap average of 182.727 MPH. This is Power's fourth pole position at Gateway. This is the seventh track where he has won at least four pole positions. Power's 67th pole position comes in his 267th race appearance. Mario Andretti's 67th pole position was in Andretti's 385th race appearance. In six Gateway starts, Will Power has finished on the podium three times and outside the top fifteen in the other three races. Power’s worst finish in his last five oval starts is 15th. In those other four races, he has finished third, fourth, third and second. Power has not won on an oval since Pocono 2019.
Marcus Ericsson joins Power on the front row, Ericsson's first career front row start in IndyCar. He has finished outside the top ten in the last two races and Ericsson has not had three consecutive results outside the top ten since joining Chip Ganassi Racing. He has gone four races without a top five finish, his longest slump since the final five races of last season. Ericsson is the only driver to finish in the top ten of every oval race this season.
Josef Newgarden is third in the championship and Newgarden will start third at Gateway. Newgarden could become the first driver with three oval victories in a season since 2009 when Scott Dixon won at Kansas, Milwaukee, Richmond and Motegi. Newgarden has three victories, two seventh-place finishes and a 12th at Gateway. He has never started worse than sixth at this track.
Scott McLaughlin makes it three Team Penske drivers in the top four positions. McLaughlin has finished better than his starting position in five of the last seven races. In the first seven races of the season, McLaughlin never finished better than his starting position, but he was equal to his starting position at St. Petersburg, a victory from pole position, and at Texas, a runner-up result from second.
Álex Palou leads an all-Chip Ganassi Racing row three. Palou was third at Nashville. Palou has had consecutive podium finishes on four occasions in his IndyCar career. Only once has Palou won from fifth starting position before, at Road America last year. Palou has not been the top Ganassi finisher since he was runner-up at Mid-Ohio five races ago.
Scott Dixon starts outside of Palou. Dixon has been the top Ganassi finisher in five consecutive races. Dixon had been the top Ganassi finisher in only one of the first nine races this season. Dixon will be making his 366th career start this weekend. Dixon’s 53rd career victory in the last race at Nashville came in 12 fewer starts than it took Mario Andretti to reach 52 victories. A.J. Foyt had already won 67 races at the time of his 366th start, which was his fourth-to-last IndyCar start.
Patricio O’Ward makes it a clean sweep of the top seven positions for the top seven in the championship. Seventh is O'Ward's worst starting position ever at Gateway. He has finished on the podium in all three of his Gateway starts. O’Ward’s most podium finishes have come at Gateway.
Takuma Sato qualified eighth, Sato's fourth time starting in the top ten on an oval this season. Sato has five consecutive top ten finishes at Gateway. Sato has had at least one top five finish in 11 consecutive seasons. His best finish this season was seventh in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
Devlin DeFrancesco will start ninth, his first career top ten start in IndyCar and his first time as the top starting Andretti Autosport driver in a race. DeFrancesco won the 2020 Indy Pro 2000 race at Gateway. He was fourth and fifth in the Indy Lights races here last year. DeFrancesco’s 22nd-place finish at Nashville was his worst finish since he was 25th at Long Beach.
Alexander Rossi joins his teammate DeFrancesco on row five. Rossi has finished outside the top ten in four consecutive Gateway races after finishing in the top ten in his first two Gateway starts, which included a runner-up finish in 2018. Rossi is looking for his sixth top five finish this season. It would be his most in one year since 11 top five finishes in 2019.
Colton Herta makes it tic-tac-toe, three Andretti Autosport drivers in a row on the grid with Herta starting 11th. Herta’s best oval finish this season is 12th, which came at Texas and in the second Iowa race. Herta’s most recent top ten finish on an oval was fifth in the second Texas race last year. Herta has still yet to finish on the podium in an oval race. The worst starting position for a Gateway is 11th on two occasions.
David Malukas will start 12th for his Gateway IndyCar debut. Malukas has been the top Dale Coyne Racing finisher in every oval race this season. He has not finished worse than 16th on an oval this season and he has completed 947 of 948 oval laps this season. He swept the Indy Lights races at Gateway last season.
Simon Pagenaud starts 13th for the second consecutive race. Pagenaud has finished in the top ten of the 15th race of the season on eight consecutive occasions, which includes four top five finish, three have come at Gateway. Pagenaud has only seven top five finishes in the last 44 races. He had seven top five finishes in the 2019 season alone.
Jack Harvey is the top Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing starter in 14th position. This is the third time in the last five races Harvey has been the top RLLR qualifier. Harvey is coming off his first top ten finish of the season when he was tenth at Nashville. He has yet to be the top Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing finisher this season.
Marcus Ericsson joins Power on the front row, Ericsson's first career front row start in IndyCar. He has finished outside the top ten in the last two races and Ericsson has not had three consecutive results outside the top ten since joining Chip Ganassi Racing. He has gone four races without a top five finish, his longest slump since the final five races of last season. Ericsson is the only driver to finish in the top ten of every oval race this season.
Josef Newgarden is third in the championship and Newgarden will start third at Gateway. Newgarden could become the first driver with three oval victories in a season since 2009 when Scott Dixon won at Kansas, Milwaukee, Richmond and Motegi. Newgarden has three victories, two seventh-place finishes and a 12th at Gateway. He has never started worse than sixth at this track.
Scott McLaughlin makes it three Team Penske drivers in the top four positions. McLaughlin has finished better than his starting position in five of the last seven races. In the first seven races of the season, McLaughlin never finished better than his starting position, but he was equal to his starting position at St. Petersburg, a victory from pole position, and at Texas, a runner-up result from second.
Álex Palou leads an all-Chip Ganassi Racing row three. Palou was third at Nashville. Palou has had consecutive podium finishes on four occasions in his IndyCar career. Only once has Palou won from fifth starting position before, at Road America last year. Palou has not been the top Ganassi finisher since he was runner-up at Mid-Ohio five races ago.
Scott Dixon starts outside of Palou. Dixon has been the top Ganassi finisher in five consecutive races. Dixon had been the top Ganassi finisher in only one of the first nine races this season. Dixon will be making his 366th career start this weekend. Dixon’s 53rd career victory in the last race at Nashville came in 12 fewer starts than it took Mario Andretti to reach 52 victories. A.J. Foyt had already won 67 races at the time of his 366th start, which was his fourth-to-last IndyCar start.
Patricio O’Ward makes it a clean sweep of the top seven positions for the top seven in the championship. Seventh is O'Ward's worst starting position ever at Gateway. He has finished on the podium in all three of his Gateway starts. O’Ward’s most podium finishes have come at Gateway.
Takuma Sato qualified eighth, Sato's fourth time starting in the top ten on an oval this season. Sato has five consecutive top ten finishes at Gateway. Sato has had at least one top five finish in 11 consecutive seasons. His best finish this season was seventh in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
Devlin DeFrancesco will start ninth, his first career top ten start in IndyCar and his first time as the top starting Andretti Autosport driver in a race. DeFrancesco won the 2020 Indy Pro 2000 race at Gateway. He was fourth and fifth in the Indy Lights races here last year. DeFrancesco’s 22nd-place finish at Nashville was his worst finish since he was 25th at Long Beach.
Alexander Rossi joins his teammate DeFrancesco on row five. Rossi has finished outside the top ten in four consecutive Gateway races after finishing in the top ten in his first two Gateway starts, which included a runner-up finish in 2018. Rossi is looking for his sixth top five finish this season. It would be his most in one year since 11 top five finishes in 2019.
Colton Herta makes it tic-tac-toe, three Andretti Autosport drivers in a row on the grid with Herta starting 11th. Herta’s best oval finish this season is 12th, which came at Texas and in the second Iowa race. Herta’s most recent top ten finish on an oval was fifth in the second Texas race last year. Herta has still yet to finish on the podium in an oval race. The worst starting position for a Gateway is 11th on two occasions.
David Malukas will start 12th for his Gateway IndyCar debut. Malukas has been the top Dale Coyne Racing finisher in every oval race this season. He has not finished worse than 16th on an oval this season and he has completed 947 of 948 oval laps this season. He swept the Indy Lights races at Gateway last season.
Simon Pagenaud starts 13th for the second consecutive race. Pagenaud has finished in the top ten of the 15th race of the season on eight consecutive occasions, which includes four top five finish, three have come at Gateway. Pagenaud has only seven top five finishes in the last 44 races. He had seven top five finishes in the 2019 season alone.
Jack Harvey is the top Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing starter in 14th position. This is the third time in the last five races Harvey has been the top RLLR qualifier. Harvey is coming off his first top ten finish of the season when he was tenth at Nashville. He has yet to be the top Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing finisher this season.
Conor Daly leads an all-American row eight. Like Harvey, this is the third time in five races Daly has been the top Ed Carpenter Racing qualifier. Daly has finished outside the top ten in eight consecutive races since he finished sixth in the Indianapolis 500. Last year, Daly finished 11th at Gateway, his worst finish in five starts.
Graham Rahal qualified 16th, matching his best oval qualifying effort this season. Rahal has finished outside the top fifteen in four consecutive Gateway races. Rahal has been outside the top ten in five of six Gateway races with his best finish being tenth.
Hélio Castroneves starts 17th at Gateway, the first time he has ever started outside the top ten at Gateway. Castroneves has finished in the top ten in all six of his Gateway starts, including three consecutive top five finishes. However, this is Castroneves’ first Gateway appearance since 2017.
Romain Grosjean has a nine-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change that drops him to 18th on the grid. Grosjean was the fastest Andretti Autosport qualifier on speed, ending up ninth ahead of DeFrancesco. Grosjean has either finished inside the top ten or outside the top fifteen in every race this season. Grosjean has only finished between 11th and 15th twice in his IndyCar career, 13th at St. Petersburg last year and 14th at Gateway last year.
Christian Lundgaard makes his Gateway debut from 19th on the grid. Lundgaard is looking for his third consecutive top ten finish. Lundgaard has six top ten finishes while the rest of the rookies have a combined four top ten finishes.
Kyle Kirkwood rounds out the top twenty. Kirkwood’s average finish on ovals this season is 20.5, slightly better than his overall average finish this season of 20.857. He has finished outside the top fifteen in three consecutive races, ten of the last 11 and 12 of 14 races this season.
Jimmie Johnson makes his return to Gateway 21 years after his last appearance and Johnson starts 21st. Johnson made three starts at the track in NASCAR’s second division. He finished 15th, 13th and 14th. His first start at the track in 1998 was his second start in the series and he led 10 laps. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won that race, Matt Kenneth was second, Tony Stewart was fifth and Adam Petty was Johnson’s teammate. It was Petty’s NASCAR debut.
Callum Ilott finds himself starting 22nd next to Johnson. Ilott has five consecutive top fifteen finishes and six top fifteen finishes in the last seven races. Ilott had one top fifteen finish in his first six starts this season and one in the first nine starts of his IndyCar career.
Rinus VeeKay qualified 23rd, the worst starting position of his season. VeeKay started 23rd at Gateway last year as well. The Dutchman has three top five finishes this season, tied for his most top five finishes in a single season with his rookie season, which included a fourth-place finish in the second Gateway race.
Dalton Kellett is next to VeeKay on row 12. Kellett scored his best career finish last year at Gateway when he finished 12th. It is Kellett’s only top fifteen finish in his IndyCar career. Kellett makes his 39th career start this weekend. He is currently second all-time in most starts without a top ten finish. Milka Duno had zero top ten finishes in 43 starts.
Ed Carpenter was the first car to take to the track in qualifying and he will start on the final row in 25th position. Carpenter has finished outside the top ten in his last five starts. He has finished off the lead lap in five of six Gateway races and he has retired three times here.
Felix Rosenqvist spun on his qualifying run and Rosenqvist will start last. He has two top ten finishes on ovals this season. Entering the 2022 season, Rosenqvist had only two top ten oval finishes in his IndyCar career, both of which were in the 2020 Gateway doubleheader.
USA’s coverage of the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 begins at 6:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 260 laps.
