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| Days after finishing second at Indianapolis, Alexander Rossi topped the timesheet in Detroit |
Scott Dixon was third in Friday practice, just a little over 0.12 seconds behind Newgarden. Dixon has not won pole position at Belle Isle since 2012 but he has started in the top eight in eight consecutive Belle Isle races. Rossi and Dixon enter this weekend each with 31 consecutive finishes, tied for the longest active streak in IndyCar. Will Power was fourth fastest, nearly seven-tenths behind Rossi. Power has not led a lap in the last four Belle Isle races after having led a lap in the seven races prior. Despite Power have won twice at Belle Isle he has never led more than 21 laps in one Belle Isle race and he has only broken double-digit laps led twice, his two victories in the first 2014 race and the first 2016 race. Power's 47 laps led at Belle Isle in 14 starts is equal to the number of laps he led in four Watkins Glen starts, only one more than he has led in five Road America starts and only two more than he led in his maiden start at Austin, which came earlier this season. Power enters this weekend with 33 consecutive top ten starts with his last start coming outside the top ten was 11th in the first Belle Isle race in 2017.
Ryan Hunter-Reay rounded out the top five on Friday and was 0.8529 second behind his teammate. Hunter-Reay won last year at Belle Isle and he finished second in the first race. Hunter-Reay has not led a lap through the first six races of the 2019 season. It is Hunter-Reay's longest drought without a lap led to start a season since 2015 when he did not lead a lap in any of the first ten races. Graham Rahal was sixth in practice. Rahal's 27th place finish in the Indianapolis 500 was the fifth time he has finished outside the top twenty in 12 Indianapolis 500 starts. His 27th place result last week was his sixth finish outside the top twenty in the last 17 races. Rahal had six finishes outside the top twenty in the 73 races from the 2014 season opener to the 2018 Indianapolis 500.
Spencer Pigot was seventh fastest and Pigot has never started better than 12th in a Belle Isle race. Pigot enters Belle Isle ninth in the championship and it is the first time an Ed Carpenter Racing driver has been in the top ten of the championship since Josef Newgarden was fourth in the championship after his final race with the team at Sonoma in 2016. James Hinchcliffe was eighth fastest, the first driver over a second behind Rossi's top time. Hinchcliffe has finished outside the top ten in five of the last six Belle Isle races with the exception being when he finished third in the first race in 2017. Ironically, Hinchcliffe has started in the top ten for five of those six races.
Zach Veach made it three Andretti Autosport cars in the top ten after finishing Friday in ninth. Veach has finished outside the top ten in eight consecutive races, tied for the longest drought in his IndyCar career. Last year, Veach started seventh in the second Belle Isle race and that is his only top ten start on a street course. Indianapolis 500 winner Simon Pagenaud rounded out the top ten in practice, 1.1556 seconds behind Rossi. Pagenaud has won 13 races in his IndyCar career and he leads all active drivers with most victories without winning a race when starting outside the top ten. Pagenaud is tied with Tom Sneva for eighth most victories without winning from outside the top ten. Bobby Rahal and Ted Horn are tied for the record with 24 victories. All of Earl Cooper's 21 victories came from inside the top ten, as did Bill Holland's 20 victories. Sam Hornish, Jr. won 19 races and the worst he started in a victory was tenth. Danny Sullivan's final victory came at Belle Isle in 1993 and he won that race from tenth on the grid, the worst starting position for a Sullivan victory. Louis Chevrolet won 14 races, all coming from within the top ten positions on the grid.
Ed Jones was just outside the top ten in 11th with Marcus Ericsson in 12th. Jones' third place finish in the second Belle Isle race last year is his most recent top five finish. All three of Jones top five finishes have been third place finishes. Marcus Ericsson is coming off the best two starting positions of his brief IndyCar career after he started ninth and 13th in the two Indianapolis races. Unfortunately for Ericsson, his worst two finishes this season came in those two races.
Colton Herta heads to the state of his father's birth for the first time in his IndyCar career and he was 13th in practice. Bryan Herta won at Michigan International Speedway in 2005, the final victory of his IndyCar career. Bryan's best finish at Belle Isle was seventh in 1997 and his best starting position at the track was fifth in 1998. Sébastien Bourdais was 14th on Friday. Bourdais has two victories at Belle Isle and three top ten finishes at the track but he has also finished outside the top twenty three times at Belle Isle and he has started outside the top ten in seven of 11 Belle Isle starts. Bourdais has never started better than sixth at this track. He has finished outside the top ten in six consecutive street course races.
Takuma Sato was 15th in practice. Sato has two podium finishes through the first six races of the season. Sato has never had three podium finishes in a season. The only time Sato has had two podium finishes earlier in a season was 2013 when he won the third round at Long Beach and finished second in the fourth race at São Paulo. Felix Rosenqvist was over a second off his teammate Dixon in practice and ended up 16th. Rosenqvist has started in the top five in three races this season and in each of those starts he finished worst than his starting position. Rosenqvist has started outside the top ten in his other three starts and in all three of those starts he finished better than his starting position. At least one rookie has finished in the top ten in the first Belle Isle race the last five years.
Patricio O'Ward will attempt to make his sixth career start at Belle Isle and he was 17th in practice. Héctor Rebaque was the first Mexican driver to win an IndyCar race and that victory came in Rebaque's sixth career start at Road America in 1982. It was the final IndyCar start of Rebaque's career as he would suffer injuries in a test at Milwaukee the following week and decided to focus on road racing. Last year, Santino Ferrucci made his IndyCar debut at Belle Isle and he was 18th after Friday practice and one year later he is 18th after Friday practice again. Ferrucci is coming off taking Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year honors with a seventh place finish and a lap led last week. The average finish for the last ten Indianapolis 500 Rookies of the Year in their next start is 18th with eight of those ten finishing outside the top ten in the next race. The two exceptions are Alexander Rossi, who finished tenth in the next race at Belle Isle, and Robert Wickens, who finished eighth the week after finishing ninth at Indianapolis.
Max Chilton and Matheus Leist rounded out the top twenty. Prior to missing the Indianapolis 500, Chilton had made 55 consecutive starts in his IndyCar career. In Chilton's 55 starts, he has started in the top ten 13 times and eight top ten finishes. Leist has finished in the top fifteen in the last three races. Leist has never had four consecutive top fifteen finishes in his IndyCar career. Tony Kanaan and Marco Andretti rounded out the timesheet for Friday. Kanaan has started outside the top ten in 14 consecutive races and in ten of 17 Belle Isle starts. Andretti is coming off a 26th place finish in the Indianapolis 500, his second worst finish in the Indianapolis 500. Andretti has finished outside the top ten in four consecutive races, his worst drought since he went nine consecutive races without a top ten finish from Pocono 2015 to the first Belle Isle race in 2016.
Qualifying for the first Belle Isle race will take place at 10:45 a.m. ET and can be seen live with the IndyCar Gold pass on NBC Sports Gold. NBCSN will re-broadcast qualifying at noon ET.
Group one for Saturday's qualifying session will feature Newgarden, Power, Hunter-Reay, Hinchcliffe, Jones, Veach, Bourdais, Rosenqvist, Ferrucci, Leist and Andretti. Group two will have Rossi, Dixon, Rahal, Pigot, Pagenaud, Ericsson, Herta, Sato, O'Ward, Chilton and Kanaan. The fastest time will win pole position and the group that has the pole-sitter will set the odd-numbered positions on the grid with the other group taking the even-numbered positions.
NBC's coverage of the first race of the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix will begin at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 70 laps.
