At the location of his first career pole position, Colton Herta won the tenth pole position of his IndyCar career for the Sonsio Grand Prix of Road America. Herta took the top spot with a lap of 100.1945 seconds. He is the 40th driver to reach ten career pole positions. This is the 73rd appearance in Herta's IndyCar career. The Californian has an average finish of fifth at Road America in five starts. Herta's only top five finish this season was fourth at Long Beach. His most recent podium result was second at Toronto last July, which was his most recent pole position before this weekend. Herta has won from pole position four times, most recently the 2021 Laguna Seca race.
Patricio O'Ward was 0.1698 seconds behind Herta's top time and O'Ward will start second. This is O'Ward's first front row start of the season. O'Ward has failed to finish the last two races, classified in 24th for the Indianapolis 500 and 25th in Detroit. Since joining McLaren, only twice has O'Ward had three consecutive races finishing outside the top ten. One was the 2021 season finale at Long Beach spread over the first two races of 2022 at St. Petersburg and Texas. The other started last year at Road America and covered Mid-Ohio and Toronto.
Álex Palou ended up third, 0.2985 seconds behind Herta. Palou enters Road America with six consecutive top five finishes, the longest streak of his career. This is the longest top five finish streak in IndyCar since Scott Dixon had a seven-race top five streak spread over the final six events of the 2018 season and the 2019 season opener. Dixon also had another six-race top five finish streak earlier in the 2018 season, which included two victories. The next lap Palou leads will be the 500th lap led in his IndyCar career.
Josef Newgarden will start fourth. The only time Newgarden has won from fourth starting position was at Texas earlier this season. Newgarden is looking to become the fourth driver to win consecutive Road America races joining Mario Andretti, Michael Andretti and Jacques Villeneuve. In each of those previous three occasions, those drivers won the championship in the year of their second consecutive Road America victory.
Alexander Rossi qualified fifth. This was the first time Rossi made it to the final round of qualifying this season. Rossi is looking for four consecutive top five finishes for the first time since he had four consecutive podium finishes in 2020 spread over the Mid-Ohio doubleheader and Harvest Grand Prix doubleheader. Seven of Rossi's eight career victories are from a top three starting position. The exception is when he started 11th in the 100th Indianapolis 500.
Kyle Kirkwood had an engine expire at the end of round two, but his time was enough to advance to the Fast Six. Kirkwood will start sixth by default. The Long Beach winner ended up 20th in last year's Road America race, a four-place improvement from his grid position. Last race, Kirkwood picked up his first career fastest lap in the Detroit Grand Prix.
Christian Lundgaard was 0.0532 seconds shy of advancing to the final round of qualifying and Lundgaard will start seventh. Lundgaard was sixth and fourth in the first two natural-terrain road course races held this season at Barber Motorsports Park and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. He started in the top ten in both of those races as well.
Marcus Armstrong gets his first top ten start in IndyCar as Armstrong will be starting eighth. Armstrong was 0.1257 seconds off advancing to the Fast Six. He is making his sixth career start this weekend. Héctor Rebaque won the inaugural IndyCar race at Road America in what was his sixth career start.
Marcus Ericsson occupies ninth on the grid. Ericsson has eight consecutive top ten finishes dating back to last season. Ericsson's longest top ten finish streak is nine races spanning from the 2021 first Belle Isle race through Laguna Seca. This is the third consecutive season Ericsson has had a top ten finish streak at least seven races in length.
Benjamin Pedersen made the second round of qualifying for the first time in his career and Pedersen also earned his first career top ten starting position. Pedersen takes tenth on the grid. This is the fifth time Pedersen has been the top Foyt starter this season. Detroit was the second time this season the Dane was the best finishing A.J. Foyt Racing driver. The other race was Texas.
Santino Ferrucci made it two-for-two in second round participants for A.J. Foyt Racing. Ferrucci will start 11th. It is the first time A.J. Foyt Racing has had both cars advance to the second round of qualifying for a road/street course race since 2018 at St. Petersburg when Matheus Leist qualified third and Tony Kanaan started tenth. Ferrucci has finished outside the top twenty in four of seven races this season.
Devlin DeFrancesco made the second round for the second time in his career and he will start 12th, matching his best road/street course start, which occurred last year at Toronto. DeFrancesco rolls into Road America with consecutive top fifteen finishes for the first time in his IndyCar career. DeFrancesco scored his best road/street result in Detroit when he finished 12th. This is DeFrancesco's 25th career start, and he has yet to finish in the top ten in his IndyCar. Only three drivers took more than 25 starts for their first top ten finish.
David Malukas fell 0.0481 seconds short of advancing from group one during the first round of qualifying, and Malukas will start 13th, only his second top fifteen start this season. Dale Coyne Racing has not had a top twenty finisher in the last three races and it has not had a top fifteen finish in the last five races. The team's average finish in the last three races is 26.333 and Coyne's average finish over the last five races is 24.2.
Graham Rahal is 14th on the grid. Rahal has finished outside the top twenty in the last two races. It is the first time he has had consecutive races outside the top twenty since the final two races of the 2018 season. The only time Rahal has had three consecutive results outside the top twenty was Edmonton, Mid-Ohio and Loudon in 2011.
Rinus VeeKay will start 15th. This is the fourth time in five races VeeKay has started in the top fifteen after starting no better than 19th in the first three races of the season. The Dutchman has one top ten finish in the last 11 races. VeeKay has finished outside the top fifteen in six of those last 11 races.
Felix Rosenqvist will not start in the top ten for the first time this season with Rosenqvist rolling off from 16th position. The Swede is coming off his fifth career podium finish after finishing third at Detroit. Rosenqvist's average finish in the race following a podium result is 16.75. Only once has he finished in the top ten in the race after a podium result. That was fifth in the 2019 Laguna Seca season finale.
Callum Ilott qualified 17th. After opening the season with two consecutive top ten results, Ilott has finished outside the top ten in five consecutive races. His average finish over this five race span is 17.8. Last season, Ilott had nine consecutive starts without a top ten result, where his average finish was 17th during that stretch.
Scott McLaughlin is 18th on the grid, his worst starting position of the season. McLaughlin's only top five finish this season was his Barber Motorsports Park victory. His best IndyCar finish in the month of June was seventh at Road America last year.
Romain Grosjean starts 19th for the second time in three races. For the second consecutive season, Grosjean has finished outside the top ten in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Indianapolis 500 and in the city of Detroit. Grosjean broke that slump with a fourth-place finish at Road America.
Simon Pagenaud makes it an all-French row ten. Pagenaud is in the middle of a ten-race top ten finish slump. He has finished outside the top ten in the last four Road America races
Agustín Canapino makes his Road America debut in the 21st starting position. This is the third time Canapino has started on row 11 this season. Canapino has been the second-best rookie finisher in four races this season and he was the top rookie at Texas.
Will Power starts 22nd, his worst starting position of the season and his worst starting spot at Road America. His previous worst was 15th last year. Power was second in the last race in Detroit. Power has not won after finishing second in the race prior since 2018 when he was second at Pocono and then won at Gateway. That Gateway race was the fourth consecutive time he had won the race following a runner-up result. He has eight runner-up finishes since that Gateway victory. His average finish in those previous seven races following a runner-up finish is tenth.
Scott Dixon starts 23rd. This is the fifth time Dixon has started 23rd or worse in a race, the most recent was when he started 26th in the August 2021 IMS road course race. Dixon's first career victory came from 23rd on the grid at Nazareth over 22 years ago. The New Zealander has yet to be the top Chip Ganassi Racing finisher this season. Dixon was the top Ganassi finisher in seven races last season, six of which came in the final eight races. Dixon has finished in the top ten in the eighth race of the season in seven consecutive years.
Jack Harvey ended up 24th in qualifying. Harvey has one top ten finish in the last 23 races. Harvey has not had a top ten finish on a natural-terrain road course since he was fourth at Portland in 2021, ten natural-terrain road course races ago.
Sting Ray Robb ended up 25th on the grid. Robb has yet to start inside the top twenty this season and he has finished outside the top twenty in the last four races. Robb's average starting position is 24.25, the worst among the full-time drivers.
Hélio Castroneves takes 26th on the grid, matching his worst starting spot of the season. This race comes on the 23rd anniversary of Hélio Castroneves' first career IndyCar victory at Belle Isle. Castroneves currently ranks tied for tenth all-time on 31 career victories and he is one of 12 drivers to reach the 30-victory milestone.
Ryan Hunter-Reay brought out a red flag late in the group two session in round one, and this will put Hunter-Reay 27th on the grid. This is Hunter-Reay's worst starting position since Portland 2021 when he started 27th. That was only two starts ago for Hunter-Reay as he makes his first road course appearance in IndyCar since 2021. Hunter-Reay did not have a top ten finish on a road course that season. Hunter-Reay ended up 17th in the championship for the 2021 season.
USA's coverage of the Sonsio Grand Prix of Road America begins at 1:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 1:23 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 55 laps.
