Hoping to rebound from a disappointing runner-up finish last week at Belle Isle, Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden scored the pole for the second time in the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series season. Newgarden laid down a lap of 1:46.0186 to win his 13th career pole.
“I’m surprised more (drivers) didn’t come with us,” Newgarden said.
“All weekend, we have been talking about how aggressively the tires have been falling off. To me, it was the right decision). We stuck to our plan, our car was fast. Team Chevy has done a good job like always all year and we just need to keep our speed for tomorrow.”
Newgarden was part of the second group in qualifying and was the fastest among that group, which helped him advance to the Top 12. His No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet’s speed was enough to move into the fast six along with Jack Harvey, Colton Herta, Simon Pagenaud, Alex Palou and Will Power.
As the checkered flag flew for the session, the top spot changed a couple of times, but the pole position ultimately went to Newgarden. Herta placed second, with Harvey third, Power fourth, Palou fifth and Pagenaud rounding out the fast six.
Harvey qualified third for the second time this year and for the first time since the Indianapolis Grand Prix. However, he is looking to turn around his results with finishes of 19th and 16th at the two Belle Isle races and 18th place in the Indy 500.
“Practice one and two, we left a bunch on the table,” Harvey said. “I thought if we did a really good job (in qualifying), we could transfer to the fast six. A solid P3 here is pretty awesome. Maybe we could have done a few things better in the fast six to get a little bit closer to Josef (Newgarden), but I’m really happy to qualify third. Everybody at Meyer Shank Racing has worked really hard. We’ve had some unfortunate results, but I think the mental discipline the team has is what’s keeping us going.”
Right behind Harvey is Will Power who qualified fourth after setting a time of 1:46.8237. He is also looking for better results on Sunday as the Aussie only has one podium this year and could have won one in the Saturday Belle Isle race had it not been for an ECU failure.
“Really happy to get up there in the top six,” Power told IndyCar radio. “I probably should have used those black (tires) for the final round instead of the second round. I didn’t believe the red (tires) would drop that much, but they did. Still P4, you can do something from there.”
Official Starting Line Up for Sunday’s REV Group Grand Prix at Road America.
- Josef Newgarden
- Colton Herta
- Jack Harvey
- Will Power
- Alex Palou
- Simon Pagenaud
- Romain Grosjean
- Ryan Hunter-Reay
- Alexander Rossi
- Pato O’Ward
- Sebastien Bourdais
- Ed Jones
- Scott Dixon
- Graham Rahal
- Conor Daly
- Oliver Askew
- Scott McLaughlin
- Marcus Ericsson
- James Hinchcliffe
- Takuma Sato
- Kevin Magnussen
- Max Chilton
- Jimmie Johnson
- Dalton Kellett
- Cody Ware
The NTT IndyCar Series will take the green flag Sunday at 12:45 p.m./ET on NBCSN. Coverage can also be heard on IndyCar radio.
