The primary pole in IndyCar’s hybrid period belongs to Chip Ganassi Racing and Alex Palou, who secured his second consecutive pole with the No. 10 Honda and the Spaniard’s third of the season.
Palou’s ultimate lap produced a 1m05.3511s tour, and behind him, Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward was charging, with the No. 5 Chevy displaying as being barely sooner than his rival, however a slight lack of velocity within the ultimate corners left the Mexican an impossibly small 0.0024s behind in second.
“We knew we had a very quick automobile,” mentioned Palou, who added yet another level to his championship lead. “It’s gonna look good on the entrance row, and it was good two weeks in the past so we wished to repeat.”
O’Ward was understandably upset to have missed out on pole by a tiny margin.
“There’s all the time extra, proper?” he mentioned. “That was a very clear lap. That is the strongest automobile that we’ve had all 12 months in a race weekend, so I’m actually excited for tomorrow, and we’re clearly those chasing. It’s all the time a very good factor to have a carrot in entrance of you, and we’ll see if we are able to get it tomorrow.”
The best story from qualifying belonged to Meyer Shank Racing and newcomer David Malukas, who fired the No. 66 Honda into third (+0.2998s) forward of Andretti International’s Colton Herta within the No. 26 Honda (+0.4142s), Ganassi’s Marcus Armstrong within the No. 11 Honda (0.5891s) who will drop to eleventh after serving a grid penalty for an unapproved engine change, and Andretti’s Marcus Ericsson within the No. 28 Honda (+0.6081s) because the sponsor of the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio claimed 5 of the highest six positions.
Behind Ericsson, the primary of the Staff Penske drivers (Scott McLaughlin) slotted in seventh on an odd afternoon for the perennial contenders.
“The driving force sucks,” McLaughlin jokingly mentioned. “Simply made a mistake on the primary lap. We should always have been simply within the Quick Six.”
The place McLaughlin did properly, his teammates had been shocking omissions from the Quick 12 as Will Energy, who holds second within the championship, certified sixteenth and teammate Josef Newgarden earned 18th on the grid, one spot behind Arrow McLaren rookie Nolan Siegel.
One other shock in qualifying got here with 2023 Indy NXT champion Christian Rasmussen, who took the No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevy to ninth, proper behind Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi and in entrance of Rossi’s impending substitute, Christian Lundgaard.
Dale Coyne Racing’s Toby Sowery, making his IndyCar debut, acquired a single lap at velocity after an vitality restoration system difficulty saved his No. 51 Dale Coyne Racing Honda on pit lane for a lot of the opening session, however he was capable of safe twenty fifth on the grid.
The opening stage of knockout qualifying pitted 13 of the 27 drivers towards one another to earn six switch spots — Palou, Malukas, Rossi, McLaughlin, Rasmussen and Ericsson superior.
Behind them, the remaining drivers had been locked into their beginning positions, starting with Felix Rosenqvist (P13), who will lose six spots on the ultimate grid after an unapproved engine change, Kyle Kirkwood (P15), Siegel (P17), Graham Rahal (P19), Santino Ferrucci (P21), Pietro Fittipaldi (P23, additionally with a six-spot grid penalty), and Sowery (P25), who misplaced treasured time on pit lane whereas his workforce labored by a vitality restoration system drawback.
The second part of the knockout course of noticed its 14 drivers separated right into a prime six headed by Armstrong (additionally with an upcoming six-position grid penalty), Herta, Lundgaard, O’Ward, Linus Lundqvist, and Romain Grosjean.
On the surface wanting in had been Dixon (P14), Energy (P16), Newgarden (P18), Rinus VeeKay (P20), Agustin Canapino (P22), Kyffin Simpson (P24), Sting Ray Robb (P26) and Jack Harvey (P27).
