Alex Palou took pole within the dry lake mattress of Laguna Seca after he set a lap time of 1:08.341 which was three-tenths quicker than his championship competitor, Pato O’Ward.
Setting the scene for a showdown within the race tomorrow, O’Ward did his greatest to proceed his sizzling streak and to seek out his second pole of the 12 months however will now look to tomorrow to proceed to deliver the combat to the Spaniard who he sits below 100 factors to within the championship.
After his pole, Palou stated: “The automotive has been wonderful. Yesterday, follow one, I felt like we had a ton of tempo. All 12 months truthfully, all people at Chip Ganassi Racing has been doing an incredible job making me look good on monitor.
“It feels nice to be on pole right here and can’t look ahead to tomorrow. I’ll do my greatest. It is powerful, I imply to have the ability to put every part collectively in a race in IndyCar, you guys have seen, it is fairly powerful, however we’ll do every part that we are able to to attempt to be up high tomorrow.
Though O’Ward would have inevitably favored pole, he recognised that that is his best-ever qualifying place at Laguna Seca and gave credit score to Palou who set a “monster lap”.
“My greatest beginning place right here, we’ll take that. Alex threw down a monster lap there and, yeah, simply blissful that we had a easy qualifying.” O’ward digressed, “It has been a little bit of a stranger to be within the Quick Six this 12 months so it is good to be again in right here.
“He is the man now we have to beat and he is beginning in entrance of us so we’ll see what tomorrow has in retailer.”
Colton Herta will begin third whereas Josef Newgarden confirmed that when every part goes proper, he can nonetheless combat with one of the best. The a number of phrase champion will begin fourth which is his greatest qualifying place this 12 months outdoors of an oval.
Newgarden was joined by his teammate, Will Energy, within the Quick Six who will begin fifth whereas David Malukas completed on the backside of the ultimate qualifying session.
A cancelled Follow Two resulting from early morning fog meant that drivers entered qualifying blind after just one hour to work out arrange on Friday in Follow One.
Uncertain of what tyre to make use of in qualifying, Group One noticed an array of vehicles utilizing totally different compounds. Penske drivers Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin used the softer purple tyre in Group One and had been joined by Marcus Ericsson on the choice.
Nonetheless, others on the laborious tyre proved that the compound’s longer life meant it may survive the lap higher with Ericsson and McLaughlin eradicated whereas Newgarden survived by the pores and skin of his tooth and solely 0.020s quicker than his teammate.
McLaughlin stated: “It is the identical for everybody however the Xfinity Chevy yesterday, we rolled off a bit bit out of the window.
“[We] threw a variety of adjustments at it this morning however a genius determined to say 8:30 for follow so nobody’s gonna run sadly nevertheless it’s the identical for everybody.
“We simply missed out, It is irritating, however I am glad that we made some enhancements there and we’ll all be higher right here tomorrow.”
Mclaughlin will begin thirteenth whereas Ericsson will begin fifteenth.
Regardless of two out of the three tender tyre runners eradicated in Group One, this didn’t appear to scare groups in Group Two with seven of the drivers utilizing the purple tyres.
Nonetheless, by the point the ultimate runs got here everybody made the change to the softer compound. Pato O’Ward discovered himself in peril within the last minute within the drop zone, nonetheless, he put himself to the highest of the timesheet along with his last lap.
Kyle Kirkwood was additionally at menace sat in thirteenth because the clock hit zero however couldn’t set a time quick sufficient to flee being eradicated and completed ninth total.
“The final lap, it wasn’t nice”, Kirkwood defined, “We had been aiming for lap two and I used to be simply caught in visitors there.
“Everyone’s sort of backing up, [I’m] unsure what all people else was doing. I am positive that they are most likely simply going to lap three however, for us, we would have liked to do a lap two and by no means actually bought a really feel for the automotive after which got here to the final nook and had a fairly substantial snap after which fought within the automotive to maintain it on monitor.
[The] automotive’s quick, we undoubtedly ought to switch there. Only a few unlucky circumstances sort of held us out from there however we’ll have extra tires than all people else now.
“I suppose that is the optimistic we are able to take from it and go from there. The technique begins for tomorrow.”
Kirkwood was joined by Santino Ferrucci within the elimination zone and Nolan Siegel whereas Graham Rahal managed to sneak his manner into the Quick 12.
The Andretti driver will begin 18th whereas Ferrucci will begin twentieth.
The Quick 12 noticed an analogous story to Group Two with a mix of drivers on the 2 totally different tyre compounds. It was Colton Herta who modified the narrative of the session by setting the quickest lap on used purple tyres.
This made different drivers make the change to the softer compound regardless of if it was used which made an extremely shut session for all of the drivers.
Pato O’Ward was practically eradicated and sat in eleventh with 30 seconds to go. Beginning his last lap with moments to go, Felix Rosenqvist and Alex Palou nearly denied him an opportunity to do his last lap with each having moments off monitor within the closing phases.
Rosenqvist spun his Grateful Useless livery automotive and managed to maintain it going by way of the gravel whereas Palou drifted his automotive into the mud however stored his foot in to deliver it again onto monitor.
With neither incident bringing out something greater than a neighborhood yellow, O’Ward put his time in and managed to get himself into the Quick Six.
Rosenqvist was eradicated nonetheless and blamed the spin on the rationale he didn’t fairly make it into the ultimate group. He’ll begin twelfth.
He stated: “I simply spun at Flip 5, [I] went in a bit laborious and I could not reserve it.
“It’s what it’s, my tempo is there, although. We’re quick, P2 within the first group, and we had been sitting P2 there so it is annoying when you have got the lap time after which it goes away.
‘[It] looks as if at any time when there’s penalties to be handed out, we’re there to take them. You’ll be able to run somebody off the monitor and that is high-quality. It was my unhealthy so I am going to need to go ahead tomorrow.”
Within the Quick Six, drivers appeared to not wish to reveal their playing cards early within the session with no aggressive lap instances set till the ultimate minutes.
Each Newgarden and Palou first appeared on the laborious tyre earlier than switching after a few laps onto the softer compound.
In the meantime Herta waited for a lot of the session within the pits feeling no have to set a banker lap.
Nonetheless, it was O’Ward who pulled the set off first within the Mexican standoff and initially went first earlier than Palou hit bullseye and set a lap time three tenths quicker than the Mexican driver
| 1 | 10 | Alex Palou | Chip Ganassi Racing | 01:08.3413 | –.—- |
| 2 | 5 | Pato O’Ward | Arrow McLaren | 01:08.6280 | 0.2867 |
| 3 | 26 | Colton Herta | Andretti World | 01:08.8824 | 0.5411 |
| 4 | 2 | Josef Newgarden | Group Penske | 01:09.6695 | 1.3282 |
| 5 | 12 | Will Energy | Group Penske | 01:10.0062 | 1.6649 |
| 6 | 4 | David Malukas | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 01:10.1811 | 1.8398 |
| 7 | 7 | Christian Lundgaard | Arrow McLaren | 01:09.2131 | 0.6183 |
| 8 | 15 | Graham Rahal | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 01:09.2658 | 0.6710 |
| 9 | 45 | Louis Foster | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 01:09.2791 | 0.6843 |
| 10 | 66 | Marcus Armstrong | Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb-Agajanian | 01:09.2993 | 0.7045 |
| 11 | 21 | Christian Rasmussen | Ed Carpenter Racing | 01:09.7246 | 1.1298 |
| 12 | 60 | Felix Rosenqvist | Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb-Agajanian | 01:09.8116 | 1.2168 |
| 13 | 3 | Scott McLaughlin | Group Penske | 01:08.9903 | 0.3251 |
| 14 | 8 | Kyffin Simpson | Chip Ganassi Racing | 01:09.3156 | 0.5642 |
| 15 | 28 | Marcus Ericsson | Andretti World | 01:09.0966 | 0.4314 |
| 16 | 6 | Nolan Siegel | Arrow McLaren | 01:09.3535 | 0.6021 |
| 17 | 18 | Rinus VeeKay | Dale Coyne Racing | 01:09.2042 | 0.5390 |
| 18 | 27 | Kyle Kirkwood | Andretti World | 01:09.3875 | 0.6361 |
| 19 | 9 | Scott Dixon | Chip Ganassi Racing | 01:09.2652 | 0.6000 |
| 20 | 14 | Santino Ferrucci | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 01:09.4663 | 0.7149 |
| 21 | 51 | Jacob Abel | Dale Coyne Racing | 01:09.3942 | 0.7290 |
| 22 | 20 | Alexander Rossi | Ed Carpenter Racing | 01:09.4788 | 0.7274 |
| 23 | 76 | Conor Daly | Juncos Hollinger Racing | 01:09.4508 | 0.7856 |
| 24 | 90 | Callum Ilott | PREMA Racing | 01:09.5751 | 0.8237 |
| 25 | 83 | Robert Shwartzman | PREMA Racing | 01:09.5634 | 0.8982 |
| 26 | 77 | Sting Ray Robb | Juncos Hollinger Racing | 01:10.0509 | 1.2995 |
| 27 | 30 | Devlin DeFrancesco | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 01:15.8287 | 7.0773 |
