Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing’s runaway points leader in the NTT IndyCar Series, took a dominant pole for Saturday’s Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis road course, with a 0.4s margin over his nearest pursuer. Three of his closest rivals were the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Hondas of Graham Rahal, rookie Louis Foster and Devlin DeFrancesco, who will start second, third and fifth respectively.
Palou, the three-time and defending IndyCar champion lapped the 14-turn 2.439-mile course in 1m09.3417s, an average speed of 126.625mph, taking full advantage of the fact that he had advanced from Q2 using only one set of new Firestone alternate tires. He abandoned one lap due to a lock- up at Turn 1, but then crushed the hopes of his opposition with his final flyer.
Foster, the reigning Indy NXT champion, was 0.1285s off his teammate Rahal, himself a former polesitter on the road course. Penske’s St. Pete polesitter Scott McLaughlin was fourth, a particularly impressive effort given how much track time he lost in practice to rear suspension changes. Teammate Josef Newgarden will start sixth, having elected to save an extra set of new alternates for the race Saturday.
It was hardly a surprise that Palou topped Q2, but the fact that RLL found the magic to turn its cars into bullets meant that six-time Indy GP polesitter Will Power didn’t make it into the Firestone Fast Six. He fell 0.02s short of deposing teammate McLaughlin, admitting he messed up Turns 12 and 13 at the start of his fastest lap. He was just 0.11s ahead of Pato O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren Chevy which, according to its driver, was losing 0.2s on the extensive straights.
Alexander Rossi, a former winner here, will start ninth for Ed Carpenter Racing alongside Ganassi’s increasingly impressive Kyffin Simpson. The sixth row will comprise Santino Ferrucci of AJ Foyt Racing and Felix Rosenqvist in the quicker of the Meyer Shank Racing Hondas.
Shock eliminations in Q1 Group 1 included Andretti Global’s Colton Herta and Kyle Kirkwood, who will start from the seventh and 11th rows respectively. Herta said he never found a good handling balance, while Kirkwood felt spending practice on primaries caught him out when switching to reds for qualifying. MSR’s Marcus Armstrong also missed out.
With a greater number of traditional heavy hitters in Group 2, it seemed predictable that big names would miss out on transferring to Q2. Sure enough, with RLL getting both DeFrancesco and Rahal into Q2 to join Palou and the three Penske drivers in the transfer spots, McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard – who finished the last three races on the podium – just missed the cut. Scott Dixon was also crestfallen to have been 0.45s behind his pacesetting teammate Palou (1m09.6683s), while Andretti’s misery was complete when Marcus Ericsson, like his teammates, was eliminated at the first stage.
