Qualifying for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio took place in the full heat of the day in Lexington, Ohio, and despite the ambient temperature reaching a muggy 88F, Alex Palou found plenty of grip on the heat-soaked track surface to secure his third pole position of the year with a blazing lap of 1m05.021s in the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.
His championship lead over Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood extended from 93 to 94 points with the run to his second straight pole at Honda’s home track. Next to Palou on the front row is Christian Lundgaard in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevy (1m05.212s), and behind him, he has teammate Kyffin Simpson in a career-best third with the No. 8 Ganassi Honda (1m05.755s).
The second row features another driver with a career-best start in fourth-place, Nolan Siegel with the No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevy, and they have fifth-place Colton Herta in the No. 28 Andretti Global Honda (1m06.122s) and Louis Foster in the No. 45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda (1m06.240s) in tow.
“Ever since I started with CGR, we’ve got great cars, but I would say we’ve always struggled qualifying up front,” Palou said. “So this ye ar, it’s been phenomenal. The speed we have in the cars in every single racetrack we show up to, it’s been amazing. Super happy. Tomorrow is going to be a great day, for sure.”
Lundgaard has Siegel to cover his back at the start. Among the major surprises in qualifying was the absence of speed from the third Arrow McLaren driver as Pato O’Ward will start 15th.
“Historically, in the last few races, we’ve tried to think about the long game, focus on being on a better strategy,” Lundgaard said. “From a tires perspective, going into the race, I think this weekend, we felt like we didn’t need to do that, so we knew that we could go for it, and it wasn’t quite enough. That No. 10 car just seems to be too strong.”
Outside the Fast Six, Ed Carpenter Racing had a solid showing with Christian Rasmussen in 10th and Alexander Rossi in 12th. The same couldn’t be said for the collective Team Penske camp to which FOX host Will Buxton said, “The horror show continues for Team Penske,” and, “Penske, in major trouble,” after Josef Newgarden was its best in 18th followed by Scott McLaughlin in 21st and Will Power in 22nd.
It will require a lot of passing, but history has shown that Team Penske tends to deliver on race days with recent victories captured in 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021, and 2022. Its affiliate team at AJ Foyt Racing was closer to the front with David Malukas in 14th and Santino Ferrucci in 17th.
The first half of knockout qualifying pitted 13 of the 27 drivers against each other, and in the 10-minute segment, Devlin DeFrancesco was the first to set a quick time with a lap of 1m06.059s which held until the last two minutes when Simpson went to the top with a 1m05.718s tour with 90s to go.
As the group fired in their best laps on new Firestone alternate tires, the top six to transfer were comprised of Lundgaard at 1m05.283s, Marcus Ericsson, Herta, Siegel, Rasmussen and Simpson.
Those who were done for the day were led by Conor Daly (P13), who missed making the cut by 0.039s, last year’s winner, a stunned O’Ward (P15), Ferrucci (P17), Sting Ray Robb (P19), a frustrated McLaughlin (P21), DeFrancesco (P23), and Jacob Abel (P25).
“I was getting held up,” said McLaughlin. “You have to back off. You can’t use the tire in the right spot, so really bummed. I genuinely feel like it should be easy to transfer there. It’s pretty bad.”
The second half of the opening knockout round saw 14 drivers take to the 2.2-mile road course and at the halfway point, Foster was quickest with a 1m05.573s lap.
With 55s left, Kirkwood went to P1 with a 1m05.506s but he was immediately topped by Palou’s 1m05.204s lap. Once the checkered flag waved, it was Palou, Foster, Scott Dixon who put in a stellar final lap, Kirkwood, Armstrong and Rossi to transfer into the Fast 12.
Finished for the afternoon, qualifying was completed for Malukas (P14), Felix Rosenqvist (P16), Newgarden (P18), Graham Rahal (P20), Power (P22), Callum Ilott (P24), Rinus Veekay (P26) and Robert Shwartzman (P27).
The Fast 12 got spicy in the final minute as Palou went to first with a 1m05.286s and he was immediately beaten by Lundgaard with a 1m05.183s. That was then immediately topped by Foster with a 1m05.089s.
Moving onto the Fast Six were Foster, Lundgaard, Palou, Herta, Siegel and Simpson. Kirkwood was the first driver out (P7) and had Armstrong (P8), Dixon (P9), Rasmussen (P10), Ericsson (P11) and Rossi (P12) in tow.
