Friday afternoon on the Indianapolis road course was reserved for an exciting NTT IndyCar Series qualifying session.
27 drivers started out with a chance at taking pole, but the field was whittled down to six drivers before the most important laps of the day were turned.
It was very nearly three Team Penske drivers against three Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing drivers in the final push for pole, if not for Alex Palou who inserted himself at the top and pushed out Will Power.
READ MORE: IndyCar IMS GP – Full Qualifying Results
Palou then went on to do what nearly everyone expects by this point: he took pole and did so by over four tenths of a second.
The Spaniard might as well have been on a rocket ship as he utilized fresh alternate tires to his advantage and positively blew everyone else out of the water.
The achievements of the rest of Fast Six are not without merit, especially those of RLL. For the first time in the team’s history all three drivers advanced to the final round of qualifying.
Graham Rahal earned the outside front row, while the team’s rookie Louis Foster crossed the line a hair slower to earn third on the grid.
Foster has had a rough start to the season so far, especially considering that he nearly dominated the field in his IndyNXT championship win last season.
This weekend gives him his best chance yet to show what he can do in top level machinery.
Scott McLaughlin wedged himself in between a couple RLL drivers to earn the fourth starting position, with Devlin DeFrancesco and Josef Newgarden filling the third row.
Power, who missed the cut by just 0.0199 seconds, had to settle for a seventh place grid position and will start alongside Pato O’Ward.
Big names in the back
Andretti Global had a frustrating qualifying afternoon, with all three drivers failing to advance out of the first round.
Colton Herta was highest of the trio and earned the 13th starting spot, with Marcus Ericsson and Kyle Kirkwood starting 20th and 21st respectively.
Another driver that failed to continue his momentum was Christian Lundgaard. The Dane is coming off a stretch of three podiums, but was only able to qualify in 14th this weekend.
The newest member of Arrow McLaren climbed through the field last week in Barber, and will have to do so this weekend if he is to keep fighting at the top of the points standings.
Scott Dixon also found himself knocked out early, and the veteran was only able to muster a 16th place grid position despite his car feeling stable underneath him.
The slowest driver was perhaps not a surprise, as PREMA rookie Robert Shwartzman brought up the rear on Saturday afternoon.
Shwartzman had virtually no practice this weekend due to mechanical issues and had to rely entirely on his racing intuition.
Now that the grid is set, drivers will look over data with their teams and make a plan of attack for Saturday’s race. The green flag flies at 4:30 PM eastern time.
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