Morning Warm-Up: Road America 2019

Colton Herta set another record at Road America

Colton Herta won the first pole position of his IndyCar career and the first pole position for Harding Steinbrenner Racing after laying down a lap at 102.9920 seconds in the final round of qualifying at Road America. Herta becomes the youngest pole-sitter in IndyCar history at 19 years and 83 days old, breaking Graham Rahal's record of 20 years and 90 days old. Herta has finished outside the top ten in seven consecutive races. His father Bryan had three stretches of worse luck in his IndyCar career. Bryan had ten consecutive starts without a top ten finish from Surfers Paradise through Toronto in 1995 and got off the snide with a runner-up finish at Cleveland. In 1996, Bryan had eight consecutive results outside the top ten from Rio de Janeiro to Portland with a fifth at Cleveland ending that spell. Bryan had another stretch of ten consecutive results outside the top ten to close the 2001 CART season from Chicago Motor Speedway to Fontana. Bryan's next start would come at Texas Motor Speedway in the IRL in 2003 and he would finish fifth. Bryan Herta's first career pole position came in his eighth start at Phoenix in 1995. Bryan retired after 170 laps and finished 17th.

Alexander Rossi will start beside Herta on row one after missing out on pole position by 0.1773 seconds. This is Rossi's first front row start at Road America and his fifth front row start of the season. Rossi has finished in the top five in four consecutive races, the longest stretch of consecutive top five finishes of his IndyCar career. He has finished in the top ten of the 15 of the last 16 races. This is the fourth time Rossi has started second in his IndyCar career. The first time he started second was when entrant's points set the grid at Gateway last year when qualifying was rained out. He started second at Austin, which Herta won, and the Sunday Belle Isle race, which Scott Dixon won.

Will Power ends the snide of three consecutive starts outside the top ten and he will start third on an all-Penske row two with Josef Newgarden to his outside. Power has won the tenth race of the season only once in his career and that was at Toronto in 2010. His only other podium finishes in the tenth race were third at Toronto in 2009 and second at Iowa in 2016. He has finished outside the top fifteen in the tenth race of the season five times including his 23rd place finish last year at Road America. Last year, Newgarden became the 11th different driver in the last 11 seasons to win the first race of summer extending a streak that includes Dan Wheldon, Dario Franchitti, Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti, Ryan Hunter-Reay, James Hinchcliffe, Carlos Huertas, Graham Rahal, Will Power and Scott Dixon. Only two of those drivers won the first race of summer and the championship in the same season, Franchitti and Hunter-Reay. In only 30 of the previous 85 qualifying seasons has the winner of the first race of summer gone on and won the championship.

For the second time this season there is an all-Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing row with Graham Rahal starting fifth and Takuma Sato starting sixth. Rahal's best career finish in the tenth race of a season came at Road America in 2007 when he finished third. Since then he has finished in fifth place twice in the tenth race of the season, at Toronto in 2010 and at Iowa in 2013. Sato has finished in the top fifteen in eight consecutive races. His previous best streak of consecutive top fifteen finishes was six and it happened on two occasions. The first was from Fontana 2012 to the 2013 Indianapolis 500. The second was from Pocono 2015 to Barber 2016. Last year, RLLR had two appearances in the Fast Six between Rahal and Sato combined. The team has five Fast Six appearances through the first six opportunities this season.

Sébastien Bourdais will start on row four in seventh position. Bourdais has never won from seventh on the grid in his IndyCar career. His best finish from seventh on the grid was third in the second race of the 2013 Toronto doubleheader. Bourdais is only one of two drivers from continental Europe to have won at Road America. The other is Alex Zanardi, who won at Road America in 1997. Spencer Pigot joins Bourdais on row four. This will be Pigot's 49th career IndyCar start. No driver in IndyCar history has scored a first career victory in the 49th start of a career. This is the fifth time Pigot has started in the top ten this season. Entering 2019, he had only started in the top ten on three occasions in his IndyCar career.

James Hinchcliffe rolls off from ninth position, his fourth consecutive top ten start since starting 32nd in the Indianapolis 500. Hinchcliffe could become the fifth different Canadian to win at Road America. Road America holds the records for most different Canadian winners and for location of most Canadian victories. Paul Tracy, Jacques Villeneuve, Alex Tagliani and Jacques Villeneuve, brother of Gilles, have combined to win six races at this track. Marco Andretti rounds out the top ten, matching his best starting position of the season, which came at the Indianapolis. Michael Andretti won on June 23 in 1991 at Portland. Andretti Autosport has won the last two races to occur on June 23rd but both of those were at Iowa in 2012 and 2013 with Ryan Hunter-Reay and Hinchcliffe responsible for those respective victories.

Ed Jones qualified 11th, matching his best starting position at Road America. Jones has only one top ten finish through his first eight starts in 2019. In his first two seasons, Jones had four top ten finishes in his first eight starts in each season and he had at least one podium finish in his first eight starts in each of those seasons. Scott Dixon had an engine failure coming to the pit lane after his final qualifying lap in round one. Dixon advanced but he was unable to contest in round two and he will start 12th. Dixon has finished outside the top fifteen in three of the last four races. He has not had four finishes outside the top fifteen in a five-race period since 2005 when he finished outside the top fifteen at Michigan, Kentucky, Pikes Peak and Chicagoland and he had a seventh place finish at Sonoma between Pikes Peak and Chicagoland. Despite approaching a historic low-point for Dixon, he has five podium finishes from the first nine races, his best total since he had five podium finishes from nine races in 2009.

Patricio O'Ward will start 13th for his Road America debut with Zach Veach joining him on row seven. Road America will be O'Ward's eighth career IndyCar start and he could become the eighth driver to score a first career victory in an eighth career start. The most recent occurrence was Richie Hearn at Las Vegas on September 15, 1996. Veach has only three top ten starts on a natural-terrain road course with this being his tenth appearance. His average starting position at natural-terrain road courses is now 15.5. His average finishing position on natural-terrain road courses is 18.444 with his only top ten finish being tenth at Mid-Ohio last year. He has finished outside the top fifteen in five of nine natural-terrain road course starts.

Ryan Hunter-Reay will start 15th, his career worst starting position at Road America, and Simon Pagenaud will start 16th, his career worst starting position at Road America. Hunter-Reay had a stretch of five consecutive top five finishes last year from the Indianapolis 500 to Road America. He enters Road America this year with three consecutive top five finishes but it is the first time in his career he has three consecutive top five finishes but none of them have been podium finishes. Pagenaud has yet to finish on the podium at Road America in IndyCar but he does have two podium finishes at the track in the American Le Mans Series. He and Gil de Ferran were runner-up finishers in 2009 to the Highcroft Racing Acura of David Brabham and Scott Sharp. The following year, Pagenaud and de Ferran were third behind the #8 Lola-Judd of Paul Drayson and Jonny Cocker and the #6 Porsche RS Spyder of Klaus Graf and Timo Bernhard.

For the first time in IndyCar history we will have an all-Swedish row in an IndyCar race and it will be row nine with Marcus Ericsson starting ahead of Felix Rosenqvist, Ericsson has had some success on larger tracks. He won the 2012 GP2 feature race at Spa-Francorchamps and he finished second in the feature race at that track the following year. He shared that podium in 2013 with race winner Sam Bird and Alexander Rossi was the third place finisher. He also scored points at Spa-Francorchamps twice in five starts in Formula One. Rosenqvist could become the second Chip Ganassi Racing driver to score a first career victory on June 23rd. Alex Zanardi's maiden IndyCar victory happened on June 23, 1996 at Portland. Entering that Portland race, Zanardi's best finish was fourth and his average finish was 15.875. Rosenqvist enters Road America with his best finish being fourth and his average finish being 12.777. Of course, Zanardi won from pole position that day at Portland.

Jack Harvey and Matheus Leist round out the top twenty. Harvey could become the first Englishman to win an IndyCar race at Road America. The only British driver to win an IndyCar race at the track was Scotsman Dario Franchitti in 1998. Leist has finished outside the top fifteen in six of the first nine races. He had eight finishes outside the top fifteen in the 2018 season. Santino Ferrucci had his car stop on circuit during the first group of qualifying and he will start 21st. Ferrucci's fourth place finish at Texas a fortnight ago was his first top five finish since he was the third place finisher in the 2016 GP3 Series sprint race at Spa-Francorchamps. Max Chilton will start 22nd. This is the fourth time Chilton has started outside the top twenty this season. Four of Chilton's eight top ten finishes in his IndyCar career have come on a natural-terrain road course, including a ninth place finish at Road America in 2017.

Tony Kanaan will round out the grid in 23rd position. This is Kanaan's seventh start outside the top twenty this season. Kanaan has not had a top five finish in his last 29 starts. His previous longest drought between top five finishes was 27 from Belle Isle 1999 to Nazareth 2001. Road America is the location of his most recent top five finish on a natural-terrain road course. He was runner-up at Road America in 2016.

NBC's coverage of the REV Group Grand Prix at Road America will begin at 12:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 12:45 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 55 laps.